


Much Farther to Go

by nukablastr



Series: No Closer to Peace [3]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Character Study, Death Threats, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mystery, Season 17 Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2020-09-27 15:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20410147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nukablastr/pseuds/nukablastr
Summary: With the arrest of Felipe Heredio, and the relative silence that followed in the weeks after his incarceration, One-P-P declared Rafael Barba's death threats a cold case. Brass promised vigilance in the wake of it all, promised increased foot patrol in Rafael’s neighborhood as soon as he was moved home from his secure hotel.It wasn't nearly enough, at least not to Sonny.And Sonny only wanted to indulge his curiosity a little. He knew he likely wasn’t even doing much more than retracing steps already taken by One-P-P in their investigation. But ever since the St. Fabiola’s mess, putting the whole of his faith into greater powers had become a tough proposition.A sequel toCut From The Cloththat picks up at the end of season 17 and follows Sonny's efforts to track down the source of Rafael's death threats, while the squad investigates a nightclub assault that hints at something darker.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just when I thought I had completely lost my passion for this kind of writing, I was struck with inspiration for the sequel! (perhaps a good omen for the upcoming Leight years part 2?) 
> 
> Of course, as luck would have it, I was struck by said inspiration approximately 72 hours before my summer break ended, so, while I have a backlog to start with and a (crazy) outline to go forward from, all I can promise is the same sporadic delivery as _Cut from the Cloth_. As always, thanks for your continued support.
> 
> Disclaimers: Tagged M to be safe. There will be canon-typical descriptions of violence and sexual assault. This takes place just after the end of season 17 (where _Cut from the Cloth_ ends), and it will diverge from canon from there. I own nothing except some finicky cats, and I am definitely not a cop or a lawyer or a court clerk, so please chalk any inaccuracies up to artistic license. Tags will be added as the story progresses.

**Sunday, May 15th, 2016 – 4:04 PM**

“Jeez, who knew that someone could accumulate so much stuff just from livin’ two weeks in a hotel room,” Sonny huffed as he set the pile of cardboard file-boxes he was carrying onto Rafael’s couch. The boxes landed with a plushy bounce, then nearly toppled over. “Woah,” Sonny said as he steadied them in place. Then, thinking better of the physics of it all, he took one box off the top and set it beside the other. He wiped beading sweat from his brow with his bare forearm as he admired the boxes and how they now took up the entirety of the couch.

“Careful with those,” Rafael chided behind him as he locked the apartment door. He took his own single, notably smaller box to the dining table (though to call it that was a bit of a misnomer, Sonny thought), pushing aside all the papers that had long gone untouched to make room for this new addition. “And it was three weeks,” Rafael added, punctuating the sentiment with the thump of the box landing. “That’s nearly a month. Plenty of time to accumulate all this when you’re as busy as I am.”

“Huh. Was it really a month?” Sonny watched as Rafael set to work on the contents of his box, integrating a few of its folders into the general mess of papers on his table. There was some precise organizational structure to it all, the apparent chaos, but much like many facets of Rafael’s existence, it was a sort of hidden truth belied by its unlikely appearance. 

Thinking back on the timeline of events, Felipe Heredio had been caught about a week after Dodds’ funeral, and that was already a few weeks behind them now. It didn’t take much coaxing to get Heredio to admit to making the threats once they’d nabbed him; the physical ones, at least. On whose behalf those threats were made, Heredio wouldn’t say, and that never sat right with Sonny, who'd exerted a monstrous amount of professional restraint when he'd finally gotten to put cuffs on the bastard.

Sonny was glad when One-P-P decided to keep Rafael stationed in his hotel room for an extra week to make sure things had quieted down, but then, by all accounts they really had. While Heredio never gave up the identity of the guy bankrolling his intimidation tactics, there were no further text messages, no more late night hang-up phone calls, no strange visitors peering in Rafael's office or following his secretary down Centre street. 

And so, with the imminent threat diminished, One-P-P officially declared the case cold. They made their promises of vigilance in the wake of it all, promises of increased foot patrol in Rafael’s neighborhood and increased security at the courthouse. Sonny couldn’t help feeling like it wasn’t nearly enough.

As Sonny reconciled the mental math on Heredio’s arrest, he realized that, on a more pleasant note, it meant that the two of them had also been seeing each other pretty regularly for almost a month. As regularly as they could, considering the circumstances: one sequestered in a hotel room avoiding mortal peril, the other not quite ready to disclose the nature of their relationship.

The jump from “nearly three weeks” to “a month” was pretty generous, Sonny thought, but in this specific case he was glad to round up. Who would’ve guessed that Rafael would put up with him for that long, and not only that, would be _ excited _ to see him. Still. The same guy who once called Sonny a broken clock; who'd often told him to save his legal insights for his _ night school _ cohort.

“Yes, it’s been just about a month,” Rafael said airily, distracted by whatever he was reading on the pages he held in each hand, shifting between them as though he were weighing their relative merit, windowed sunlight gilding his edges. Sonny rounded the couch and closed the distance between them, settling in behind Rafael and wrapping his arms comfortably around his waist.

“I take it you’re not into monthiversaries,” Sonny spoke into the crook of his neck, luxuriating in how familiar the scent had become.

Rafael maintained an impressive show of concentration on the paper in hand despite the intrusion. “I’m not fourteen, no.”

Sonny laughed, pressing a kiss into the base of his neck. “Nah. Me either. On both accounts.”

“Hm,” Rafael said, trading the papers in his hands for another few from the box. “I would have guessed you were the type to send flowers for all occasions, even the early months.”

“What, you think I’m a sap?” Sonny dropped his arms and took a step back.

Rafael turned over his shoulder, brow raised. “You think you’re not?”

“Some guys call it, y’know, being a gentleman.”

“An officer _ and _a gentleman? What are the odds?”

“Funny. You ever consider comedy?” Sonny took another few steps back to angle himself against the back of the couch, and Rafael dropped the papers he held onto the table in order to face Sonny. 

“Could you imagine the pay cut?” Rafael followed him forward, comfortably slotting between Sonny’s spread knees. “But as a general thought, I’m more partial to food than flowers, myself.” 

Sonny squinted. “That a hint?”

“I’d say so.” Rafael smoothed a wrinkle at Sonny’s shoulder with his broad palm. Such a small, benign motion that anchored Sonny to the ground, and at the same time, made him feel like his knees might buckle under the weight of the affection. “I was thinking that you might stay for dinner.”

A shy smile won out, and Sonny ducked his head. “Yeah?” He’d taken the evening off for the chance at just such an offer.

“If you’d like. You might have noticed that we don’t have chaperones anymore.”

“Huh, yeah I guess you’re right.” Sonny’s hands found Rafael’s waist once more, pulling him in closer. “Guess that means my curfew has officially been lifted.”

In Rafael’s time spent living out of his hotel room, Sonny would always appear with some sort of practical purpose: delivering case files and missed meals, bringing by a few days’ worth of mail at a time; and he would always leave dutifully around 9pm, looking as presentable as he’d arrived. They’d begun to call it his curfew, and much like the meeting the curfew regulations of his teenage years, looking presentable enough to pass muster often required a few double-checks in the full-length mirror by the doorway before exiting – flattening an errant cowlick, tucking in a bit of dress shirt pulled awry, once even buttoning a collared shirt to a ridiculous extreme in order obscure a rather glaring memento of the evening’s events.

Rafael’s smile went crooked, genuine and warm, a sight that Sonny still felt awed by in such close proximity. “Curfews and _ monthiversaries_.” He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe he’d actually uttered the word. “Next you’ll be asking me to prom.”

“What, you don’t wanna go to prom with me?” Sonny asked as he let a hand drift down toward the small of Rafael’s back, fingers dipping beneath the top of his waistband, searching for skin.

Rafael leaned in for a soft kiss. "Hm. Maybe."

“Or wait,” Sonny said, pulling back suddenly. “Did they just do the whole dance card thing in your day?” He could barely contain swell of impish pride at the darkening of Rafael’s expression. “Cause, y’know, pencil me in if so.”

“You’re lucky that I’m in such a charitable mood because of all the boxes I didn’t have to carry.” Rafael brushed his knuckles down the length of Sonny’s upper arm, the lean muscle half-cloaked in short white sleeve.

“Yeah. You know, there were _ a lot _ of boxes for two weeks.”

“Practically a month,” Rafael corrected him.

“Well… hey.” Sonny leaned in for another kiss, slower, languid. “It’s been a nice month. Almost month.”

“A few unpleasant things aside,” Rafael said, tipping his head to the side as though to pay them their due.

“Yeah. I mean, obviously.” Unpleasant was an understatement, but Sonny was in no mood to invite those ghosts into his consciousness. Not now.

“Then yes,” Rafael said, his countenance gone entirely soft, tender as he reached up to fix a stray tuft of Sonny’s hair. “Yes. It has been.”

Rafael gave him a final kiss before he left to dig out the menu for the Indian place down the street from his kitchen drawer. “God I missed this neighborhood,” Rafael said from the kitchen as the sound of shuffling menus filled the air. “That Indian place near the hotel, Spice Market? Way too greasy. And the naan was half dough.”

Sonny took the afforded moment of privacy to check the dining area windows that looked out onto the street below. It’d become a habit for Sonny to check and recheck the perimeter of any room Rafael was occupying, and he felt relief at the sight of the empty asphalt cast in late afternoon sun. A bike courier cut down the street, his metal spokes glinting and an insulated food bag hung over his shoulder.

“Huh. I can’t find it. I swore I had one in here,” Rafael called out from the kitchen, and for a brief second Sonny felt a twinge of worry, that someone had broken in and -- _ what, stolen a takeout menu? _He shook his head, huffed a laugh at himself, his paranoia. 

The kitchen drawer slammed shut. “Can you just bring it up on your app?”

“Sure,” Sonny called back, leaning back against the window sill as he grabbed his phone from his pocket. “But they’re not coming up here to your door. I’m picking it up downstairs.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Rafael snapped. After a beat, he conceded, “But, if you insist.” 

Rafael didn’t seem to see the need for Sonny’s abundance of caution, more often than not seemed annoyed by it, and it drove Sonny kinda crazy to think about -- all the days that Rafael had slipped his security detail to take walks and visit old haunts. Then again, the whole ordeal was born out of the fact that Rafael hadn’t seen the need for caution whatsoever when he invited some anonymous thug to kill him in his own home. That was just how he was. But, to his credit, Rafael had been getting better about taking Sonny’s precautions in stride, or at least not shooting them all down out of hand.

Among the notifications on his phone, a new email caught Sonny's eye, something from a DONOTREPLY address with the subject line: YOUR COURT DOCUMENTS. He tapped on the notification. “What’s the place called again?” Sonny called out to Rafael as he scanned the email.

> Dear DOMINICK CARISI, 
> 
> Your request for COURT CALENDARS - JAN-MAR/2016 has been processed. You will receive the requested documents within 2-3 business days.
> 
> Thank you for your business,
> 
> Jack Harold
> 
> Chief Clerk
> 
> 100 Centre Street
> 
> New York, N.Y. 10013

“Bombay Spice. It’s the closest one, I think.” Rafael said, his sudden reappearance at Sonny’s side startling him. 

“Whoops,” Sonny said as he attempted to casually close out the email. 

“Everything okay?” Rafael asked, nodding to the phone gripped in Sonny’s hand. 

“Yeah, no, s’fine. Just work stuff.” He navigated to the GrubHub app and loaded it up. “What are you gonna have?”

Rafael eyed him warily, and for a moment Sonny thought he might challenge the excuse. “Here,” he said, finally. “Give it to me. I’m not going to stand here and dictate a list.”

Sonny handed over the phone with a chuckle. “That hungry, huh?”

Rafael smirked as he began scrolling the menu with his thumbs. “You’re one to talk.”

“Seriously? You’re never gonna forgive me about that slice of pizza, huh?”

“It was _ my _pizza,” Rafael said. Then, satisfied with his selections, he handed the phone back to Sonny. “My last slice.”

“And you left it in that little mini fridge for a whole day. And I was starving. So sue me.”

“A tempting thought,” Rafael replied. 

“Y’know, Raf, forgiveness is a virtue,” Sonny said, adding an entree and a few sides to their already-overloaded order. “That’s what my ma always says.”

“A pity I’m not more... virtuous, then,” he said, equal parts suggestive and proud to have the last word. In fact, Rafael’s constant scrabbling for the last word in their conversations was, in itself, abject flirtation. It brought a flush to Sonny’s cheek.

Once he’d managed to place their order, making sure to add the special instructions about how the driver was to call Sonny's phone and not enter the building, Sonny surreptitiously navigated back to his email where the court clerk request was still open. _ 2-3 business days, huh? _He’d have to be on the look out for that.

He clicked on a small “archive” button, removing any trace of the message from his inbox.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback & [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ohlittleowl)/[Tumblr](http://oh-little-owl.tumblr.com/) friends are always appreciated! ❤❤❤


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: a slur, in reference to [text message threats that Rafael received](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11358315/chapters/34117280) in chapter 24 of _Cut from the Cloth_. Bolded if ya wanna skip.

**Thursday, May 19th, 2016 – 6:52 PM**

“I’m starting to think you’re avoiding me,” Rollins called over from her desk as Sonny set down his things at his computer. She swiveled to face him in her desk chair, her expression surprisingly austere for what he thought at first was an off-hand remark.

“What?”

“Seriously, you know?” She drew hair back from her shoulders into a high ponytail as she spoke. “What’s with the whole sudden night-shift routine?”

“She thinks you’ve been bitten by a vampire,” Fin deadpanned from his desk where he leaned back in his chair, and Rollins waved dismissively.

“No no, don’t listen to him. I was just wondering why you’ve abandoned us for the graveyard shift. Was it something we did?”

“Abandoned? Rollins, it’s only been a week. And besides, we’re short staffed.” He gave an instinctive glance towards Dodds’ empty desk, Benson’s empty office beyond it. “I’m just… I’m pitchin’ in where I can.”

“You sure that’s all?” The way she squinted at him as she said it told Sonny that he could have brought a notarized affidavit regarding his motivations and she still wouldn’t believe him. She was in a mood to start something.

“You wanna hook up a polygraph?” He raised his brow and she deflated, rolled her eyes and slumped back towards her computer like a sullen teen. Someday, he thought, Jesse would teach her to hate that look.

Sonny understood it, though. Her mood. He’d blown off a few dinner invitations over the past few weeks, broken their reliable pattern with no explanations that he could give besides “family stuff” and the ever evasive “errands," and she wasn’t one to take that in stride. He didn’t necessarily blame her for poking at him now; she knew him too well. She knew how to expertly push his buttons, and moreover, knew that doing so was her best chance at an inadvertently honest answer.

His recent move to overnights had been abrupt, too, but it was an opportunity that presented itself at just the right moment. Besides, it really wasn’t a permanent move; one of the overnight guys, Andrews, was taking a little leave to get settled with his new baby. 

And, okay, Sonny had partly jumped at the opportunity for the string of overnights as a part of his eternal penance to Mike Dodds, whose spot in the Munson clothes job should have been his own. But nobody really wanted to hear about that anymore. They were all still grieving the loss of Dodds in their own ways, not least of all the lieutenant, whose presence in the aftermath had been somewhat unpredictable and fraught. She was in Paris now, vacationing with Noah and Tucker, and if the squad could agree on anything, it was that the vacation was the best thing for her. Privately, however, Rafael had made a few incisive jokes about the prospect of Tucker speaking French with the Parisians, and the memory of Rafael’s impression could still catch Sonny off guard with laughter if he thought about it too much.

“You’re as bad as my sister,” Sonny muttered as he took his seat. Bella had been equally dismayed at his sudden lack of availability, and took eerily similar methods of getting his attention: chastising him through text messages about how his baby niece Julia barely knew him anymore.

“Well anyway, I’ve gotta get home,” Rollins said as she retrieved her things from a locked drawer in her desk, slung her bag over her shoulder. “Gotta get dinner on the table. Spend time with my daughter. Get a good night’s sleep. You know, the important stuff.”

“Tell Jesse I said hey,” Sonny said, only half paying attention to her pointed monologue as he watched his computer boot up, the desktop blinking into existence. Just beyond it, he caught sight of a fat envelope that sat on his desk, a new addition.

“Sure,” she said breezily. “Whatever.”

As soon as she’d disappeared, Sonny looked to Fin for commiseration.

“I think the kid’s been keepin’ her up all night,” Fin said with a shrug.

“Seems like it.”

“That or she really misses your morning pastry routine.” Fin stood from his desk, but idled a moment before his own imminent departure. When Sonny showed no sign of responding to the joke, Fin asked, “You sure you’re good, Carisi?”

“Huh?” Sonny looked up from his computer. “Oh. Yeah, no seriously, I’m fine.”

Fin wore a curious expression of concern, a rare sight for the guy, and Sonny was reminded of that unspoken truth still laid between them. They’d both read the log of texts that had been sent to threaten Rafael, the ones that implicated Rafael’s relationship with “**that fag cop**.” To his credit, Fin hadn’t said a word beyond that evening, and what’s more, he’d kept the incriminating texts out of the squad room. Sonny wasn’t sure how he’d done it, what strings he’d pulled to limit the access to the messages or to inhibit the general knowledge of their existence, but they were never mentioned again. Sonny was eternally grateful for that mercy.

“Look,” Sonny continued, “Andrews is comin’ back soon, it’s only a little bit longer now—”

“Just makin’ sure,” Fin cut him off with an air of finality as he slid his chair into its rightful place beneath the desk. “You don’t gotta sell me on anything. Have a good night, man.”

“Yeah. Thanks. You too, Fin.”

Overnight shifts had their own unique sense of ebb and flow. Some nights could be bustling with activity, other shifts were spent mostly buried in paperwork and fighting off the siren call of sleep. Adjusting to the schedule was never easy, and the lack of collegiality amongst the night crew whom he barely knew meant that he felt disconnected from the best aspects of his own life.

Besides that, he’d barely seen Rafael in the past week, and never alone, not since the eventual rushed breakfast of black coffee that followed the big move from the hotel back to Rafael’s apartment. Their general plan had been to disclose their relationship when the lieutenant got back from Paris, which gave Sonny some time to feel out his own family. For now, they remained professional, though even professional interaction had been rare with Rafael working mostly during normal business hours.

The envelope caught Sonny’s eye again, and he snatched it from where it lay on his desk. As he’d suspected, it was from the office of the court clerks. He’d been careful not to pay it much attention while Fin and Rollins were still around, but now that they were gone for the evening, he tore it open with a surge of adrenaline laced with that ever-present sense of guilt.

It was just a little digging, he rationalized. Just to ease his mind that Felipe Heredio’s incarceration had really meant the end of Rafael’s death threats. Truthfully, he knew that he probably wasn’t doing much more than retracing the steps already taken by One-P-P in their investigation of the threats, but ever since the St. Fabiola’s mess, putting the whole of his faith into greater powers—or, at least, the fallible humans representing those greater powers—had become a tough proposition.

Sonny pulled out a thick packet of paperwork from the envelope. It was prefaced by a simple cover letter assuring him that these were the court calendars for the requested dates, as retrieved by clerk Melinda Clark. He grabbed a post-it note from his where it was affixed to his monitor. Scrawled there in his nearly-illegible script, he had kept a few of the dates of the more egregious texts sent to Rafael. He pressed the post-it to a clear spot on his desk, then laid his new papers down beside it to match up the dates.

Each packet distilled the daily bustle of the courthouse into a chronology of case numbers and trial stages, alphabetical lists of all the judges who oversaw them. The records, though voluminous, were sparse on actual relevant details. What he had hoped to see was a clear indication that those cops indicted in the shooting death of Terrance Reynolds, the ones whose charges were summarily dropped once the case was far enough out of the headlines, were in court on the days that Rafael was threatened. That's when the threats had started, Rafael had said; with their indictments.

Instead, Sonny was faced with column after column of useless information as he flipped idly through the pages. None of it told him who gave testimony in the cases; the calendars provided just enough information to prove that each segment of the trial had occurred. Sonny knew that he could look up any of these case numbers and make relevant requests, dig a little deeper to find the names he was looking for, but he didn’t want to make too many queries unrelated to his own caseload. Besides, he didn’t have _ that _much time to spend on personal ventures. He had hoped that the answers would have come easier than this.

Maybe most of all, he had to play this information close to the vest. He didn’t want to tip his hand. It would be worse for someone to find out he was poking around—someone like Rollins, or brass, or God forbid Rafael—than for him to eventually admit to this bit of idle curiosity.

He flipped through the pages to find the record for March 12th. It was the day before his UC operation, the day before Smitty the Spuyten Duyvil shelter resident came to life in a miserably grey moment amidst the metal lockers and foggy mirrors of the precinct. It was in that brief shelter existence, he thought, that he’d acquired his recent aversion to meatloaf. It was also the day that Rafael received the most damning texts, indicating that whoever was doing the threatening had caught onto the shift in their relationship.

Sonny jaw started to cramp, and found that he needed to consciously work to unclench it. He shook the memory of those texts from his head, and ran his capped pen down the margin of the March 12th page, stopping at a listing for a case that looked interesting: _ State v. Treymont Treuth _. Sonny remembered hearing about that guy, some sort of drug related hit that took place behind a Midtown church. Guy was damn near impaled when he had miscalculated his attempt to scale a chain link fence in the escape, and for a short while they weren’t sure if he was going to survive the injury. Fin had talked about it the next morning at their briefing, had some theories about the Treuth’s capture and what it meant for the chain of command in that particular drug ring based on his own storied history in Narcotics.

He flipped back through the pages of calendars, and found that the case had been long running, spanning a majority of the dates whose records he had. _ Heck, it could have been picked up by the guys at the 27th precinct_, Sonny thought, and he uncapped his pen to write the case number in his notebook.

“Carisi?” Sonny was so startled by the sudden intrusion that he nearly tossed his notebook, and that sudden jerk of his arm scattered his pile of court calendars across his desk and onto the floor.

The source of the sound was Detective Timmons, a squirrely guy with a mess of auburn hair and an accent that wasn’t far removed from Rollins’, but still certainly out of place in a Manhattan precinct. They’d paired up a few times in his recent stint on overnights, though his companionship left a lot to be desired in Sonny’s mind. “Oh jeez, sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean to startle you there.”

Timmons bent over to retrieve a few of the pages that had fallen over the edge of the desk, and Sonny snatched them back before he could really take a look. “You’re fine,” Sonny said, trying to sound casual. “What’s up? Sorry, workin’ on cleaning up my desk, as you can see it’s a real disaster zone.”

“I didn’t mean to… disturb ya. I just got off the phone—they’ve got a vic en-route to Mercy, says she was assaulted in the bathroom of some nightclub. Tin Spoon? Anyway, paramedics says the guy really roughed her up. You down to take her statement with me?”

“Yeah, sure.” Sonny neatened the pile of papers, attempting to look detached from the process and not at all like the man who’d moments earlier seemed desperate to keep a secret. “Sure thing. Yeah, just gimme a minute to clean all this up, alright?”

“No problem,” Timmons said. He eyed the papers once more before adding, “Here, I’ll grab us some coffees for the road.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Once Timmons had hit the break room, Carisi scanned the cover letter. He found the clerk’s name again, Melinda Clark, and took it down in his notebook beneath his note about the Treuth case, then tucked all of the files and his post-it note neatly into the envelope and locked them all inside his desk. Maybe he could poke around the courthouse tomorrow if he had the energy after his shift, see if Melinda had any more information on the Treuth case.

Off the record, if possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your (continued) support! I love hearing from you all ❤❤❤
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ohlittleowl)/[Tumblr](http://oh-little-owl.tumblr.com/) friends always welcomed!


	3. Chapter 3

**Friday, May 20th, 2016 – 8:13 AM**

Sonny carefully shouldered open the door to Rafael’s outer office early the next morning, carrying with him a thick folder under his arm, and balancing in his hands a precarious tray of cardboard coffee cups. He’d finally found an excuse to pay a visit to the DA’s office: the notes from the Tin Spoon case that the squad had picked up overnight, and the warrants they now needed in light of that situation.

He and Timmons had taken the victim’s statement at the hospital while a couple of unis picked up the bouncer she accused. The bouncer was a real stoic sort, his general demeanor bordering on that of your average caveman, and surprise: he wasn’t willing to give a DNA sample. Bare minimum, they needed a warrant to be able to match him to the rape kit. It wouldn't be hard to get, but still, Sonny got a sense that this was shaping up to be an unnecessarily complicated case.

Carmen glanced up from her computer with the bland indifference of an overworked assistant, an expression that broke into a warm smile upon recognition. “Hey stranger,” she said, abandoning whatever she’d been working on. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, they got me workin’ overnights lately. Caramel macchiato, easy on the caramel,” he said as he rounded her desk to deliver the cup, then perched the tray and folder together on the edge of her desk.

“You remembered!”

“Hey, come on, it hasn’t been _that_ long.”

She chuckled, then took a sip. “I hate to break it to you, but he’s pretty busy.” She nodded towards Rafael’s closed door where the blinds were pulled tight, likely indicating a high-profile meeting.

“Who, him?” Sonny joked. “Nah, I knew that. I just came to chat you up.”

She leaned back in her office chair. “Sure. And that’s why you brought… three? Three drinks.”

“Like I said, I’ve been working overnights. Two coffees for me is bare minimum for coherent conversation.” He was quicker on his feet than he had any right to be at this hour, at this level of exhaustion, but he was so grateful for the friendly conversation that it all seemed to come easy.

“Two at a time. Alright, I like your style, detective.”

“I mean, if you want to let him have one though, I wouldn’t mind. I ought to try and get some shut-eye after this.”

“Oh, yes, of course. How nice of you!” She chuckled. “So anyway, detective, what is it you wanted to ‘chat me up’ about?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Hey, do you know a… um, one sec.” He pulled his notebook from his pocket and flipped to the page where he’d written the court clerk’s name. “Melinda Clark? One of the clerks at the courthouse?”

“Melinda,” she said, squinting as she thought it over. After a moment she shook her head. “Probably? I mean I don’t know them all personally, but I’ve certainly talked to all of them at some point. For better or worse. I mostly deal with Jack, though. He runs the whole department. Why?”

“No big deal. I got some paperwork from her and wanted to follow up on a lead, thought you might know what she looks like. Knew if she was a nice lady, you know.”

Carmen rolled her eyes. “I don’t know if she’s someone you can lean on for information, if that’s what you’re asking, detective.”

“Who, me?” he asked. “_Lean _on someone?”

No sooner had Sonny had delivered the line with all the graceless flair of someone lacking essential sleep than the door to Rafael’s office flew open.

“Rafi, I won’t hear another word of it,” huffed the sharply-dressed woman making her exit. She marched across the threshold only to stop short as her intended warpath was road-blocked by Sonny’s lanky presence.

“I’m sorry, here, excuse me,” she said, gently waving Sonny aside as though she were dealing with a stray bit of dust. He dutifully stepped aside, blasted by the bright floral perfume that trailed in her wake. 

“Sonny?” Rafael said from where he now stood in his doorway, then winced to himself. He cleared his throat. 

“_Sonny_?” the woman echoed, stopping in her tracks to look between both men.

The incredulity that arched her manicured brow was distantly familiar to Sonny. He shook his head, attempted to get a handle on what was happening. “Carisi. SVU. Everybody calls me Sonny.”

Behind him, Carmen snickered into her coffee.

“Yes,” Rafael said, exiting his office with the cool veneer of a practiced redirect. “Mamí, this is Detective Carisi. One of Benson’s detectives, you remember Olivia.”

Sonny recognized her then—that photograph tucked away on Rafael’s bookshelf, one of the few truly personal mementos that he seemed to keep around. Her dark hair was cropped close like it was in the picture, and at once Sonny could see the clear resemblance in their eyes, twinned embers of determination.

“Nice to meet ya Mrs. Barba,” he said, extending a hand and fumbling for something genial to say. “Your—ah—we couldn’t do it without Rafael. Really.”

Rafael cast him a look that said _cool it,_and Sonny dropped his shoulders slightly, worried that he had oversold the sincerity.

“Rafael,” she said, though it sounded more like a question as she took Sonny’s hand in a brief, firm shake, her gold bangles jangling at her wrist.

“Yes?” Rafael asked, expectant, but she shook her head as though he hadn’t understood her meaning.

“I’ll see you for lunch on Sunday, Rafi. Nice to meet you, _Sonny_." She dropped his hand and gave him a final once over, her unyielding expression giving Sonny the sense that she had not only easily gleaned his innermost thoughts, but was entirely unimpressed by them.

Once the office door had closed behind her, an uncomfortable silence settled over the three of them left in Rafael’s office.

“Well, at least someone calls me Sonny.” He snorted at his own joke, which earned a grim sigh from Rafael.

“I see you brought coffee,” Rafael said.

“Ah-ah,” Carmen chided. “He said both of those are his. Mr. Overnights is a two-coffee guy now.”

Rafael hummed in acknowledgement, then disregarded the statement entirely as he snatched the second cup from Sonny’s tray and headed back into his chambers. Sonny shot Carmen a rueful look before he followed in tow.

As soon as Sonny had closed the door behind him, he felt compelled to apologize for something. “Sorry?”

“For what?” Rafael had already resumed his seat behind his desk.

“S’probably… not how I was supposed to meet your mom. If I was ever. You know. Supposed to meet her. I dunno. Did I mention I need some sleep?” He took an overlong gulp of his own coffee.

“Take a seat. Why are you here?” Rafael gestured to the chairs facing his desk, and Sonny took the direction in stride. He wondered what he would have done in Rafael’s position, forced to make that sort of quick family introduction; at the same time, he doubted his parents would have picked up on any subtle implications without some sort of accompanying powerpoint presentation: _Your son is dating a guy, and why he’s still gonna be okay ma, really. Next slide._

“Sonny?”

He snapped back to the conversation at hand. “Uh, yeah, no I just needed to drop off some paperwork. We ah—picked up a case last night. We’ll need some warrants. DNA. Our guy’s not being so forthcoming. We reminded him how that’s not such a good look in his position, but he didn’t take the hint.” 

“Oh,” Rafael said. He took a long sip of the coffee and closed an open folder on his desk. “That it?”

“And I mean, you know, to say hey.” Sonny glanced towards the door as though the admission had been too private to make.

To his surprise, Rafael’s demeanor softened considerably at this. “Well. Hey.” The way he said it, that familiar intimacy underscoring such a simple phrase, Sonny was flooded with relief. His shoulders fell back into the chair and a dumb smile bloomed. 

“Yeah. Hey.” 

“It’s good to see you,” Rafael said, but then he seemed to remember the circumstances and his face fell. “Mamí, she…” He looked away, toward the large picture window, and steeled his jaw. “Somebody tossed a bunch of old Muñoz campaign posters in front of her doorway last night. Taped one to her door. Blocked the peephole with it.”

Sonny’s stomach lurched. What little respite he’d found from his own endless worry immediately dissipated at the image. _Threats. And now they’re bringing his mother into it._

“That’s vandalism,” Sonny said. “I mean, at the very least, am I right? Want me to pull the security tapes?”

“No.” Rafael rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “No, none of that. Apparently she just wants to torture me with the information.” He gave a half-hearted shrug. “She says it’s just some idiot in her building. Probably, right? She’s forbidden me from looking into it. In fact, if you don’t hear from me again, it’s because she found out that I’ve told you.”

“Don’t joke about that,” Sonny said. “Seriously. And I mean, why tell you if she doesn’t want you to follow up?”

“Jung himself couldn’t tell you why she does the things she does.”

Sonny leaned back and dragged a hand through his hair. “So then what? You think… I mean, you think it’s about her, or…?” _You._

“It’s an election year. Someone’s still bitter.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Maybe.”

“She lives in the heart of his constituency. Her son, well, you know the rest.”

Sonny hadn’t been with the squad during the Muñoz scandal, but who could forget that news cycle? All the headlines about “The Trouble with Enrique Trouble.” 

However, Alex Muñoz was someone who had the means and motive to make threats against Rafael; he had both in spades. He was a man who had a lifetime of political aspirations dissipate in an instant, a man whose colossal ego Rafael promptly cut down to size. And from the way Rafael told it, Muñoz probably still believed his conviction was all the result of some orchestrated political hit—that his penchant for sending dick pics to minors had nothing to do with it.

“So what then?” Sonny asked.

“We drop it. We hope that the vandal finds another viable candidate to whom he can lend his... support. Maybe one who can keep it in his pants.” 

“Seriously? Come on. We’re just dropping the fact that someone vandalized your mother’s apartment?” Sonny fought the overwhelming urge to stand up and pace out the burst of energy that sentence gave him. He settled for bouncing his knee. “Just like that? With everything you’ve been through?”

“You can fight that particular battle with her if you’d like. I’ve had a lifetime of those battles, myself. She doesn’t want to take it any further, what else can I do?”

“Huh. Fine.” It wasn’t fine, but what could a stranger like Sonny do in this situation that her own son couldn’t? It nagged at him nonetheless, the fact that she would come across town to tell Rafael this information in person if she just meant for him to ignore it.

_No. She knew this was a threat. She was warning Rafael. _

“Like I said, just don’t tell her I sent you when you go crusading.”

“Yeah, well, at least now I know where you got the stubborn streak from.” Sonny’s phone buzzed in his pocket before he could tack on the reminder that they were still not joking about things like a potential for disappearance, and he found that he had received a message from Fin.

“Huh. Get this. Apparently CSU recovered a hidden camera from the bathroom. That club where the assault took place last night. So this bouncer assaults a patron of this nightclub in a bathroom with a camera?”

“Maybe he was unaware of the potential audience.” Rafael said over the lip of his coffee cup. “Or... maybe he liked watching the game film, so to speak. We have viable footage?”

“Fin says they sent it down to TARU to see what all we’ve got. They said there’s something, just not sure if any of it is from last night.” Sonny typed a quick message back confirming that he’d dropped off the paperwork for the DNA warrant. “Huh. Footage. Yeah, that’ll certainly help.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Rafael said. “Could be a Pandora's box. Sounds like more overnights.” 

“What?” Sonny slid the phone back into his pocket. “Oh. Yeah. I’m lookin’ another week at least. Detective Andrews, his wife just had a baby and—“

“A shame,” Rafael said, though he was quick to clarify: “The schedule, not the baby.”

Sonny felt a small welling of pride. He liked to feel so… expected. Like his absence had mattered. “Yeah, I know. We’re short staffed, considering things. Dodds. The lieutenant in Paris and all.”

“True. Or should I say, c’est vrai.”

Sonny bit down on his lower lip, remembering Rafael’s impression of Tucker speaking French. The thought must have crossed Rafael’s mind as well; a trace of amusement passed over his features.

“Yeah, well, sucks but what can you do?”

“Eloquently put.”

“Nah, I leave the eloquence to you, counselor.” Sonny leaned into the statement, waggled his brow for effect.

“That’s… likely for the best.” There was that crooked smile again, that rare bit of mirth that came entirely unbidden, without any attempt to hide it. Sonny missed it so much, especially in his recent moonlit stretches in the precinct spent drinking lukewarm coffee and rearranging the files on his desk. He felt a pang in his chest, a lonely-edged fondness, and he had to look away, weighed down by the acute pain of wanting something just beyond his grasp—that spread of hotel couch that they had made such good use of.

There was a rap on the door and Carmen popped her head in. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, then glanced to Rafael, “You’ve got to be in court at 9. The Abrams bail hearing.”

“Thank you,” Rafael said, then waved her out.

The two sat in pregnant silence for a few moments, Sonny admiring the familiar details of the office, Rafael tidying a few files that he’d likely been preparing before his mother’s visit. Sonny thought about how he would have to work up the energy to stand back up again, how he would have to traverse the congested city and trudge up four flights of stairs to his own front door when all he wanted to do was stay rooted in this spot, in this moment where Rafael was safe within sight and their entire world was comprised of four walls and each other.

“Well,” Rafael said finally, his voice weighed down by a sense of resignation, “you can leave the case notes with Carmen if you’d like. I’m sure the warrants won’t be a difficult get if you’ve done your due diligence.”

“I always do, counselor.” Sonny stood up from the chair where he sat, stretched languid and let out a long-awaited yawn. 

“Humility suits you,” Rafael said, standing and rounding the desk to walk Sonny out. He pressed a guiding palm to the small of Sonny’s back for the briefest moment, the gesture anchoring Sonny to the earth once more.

“Keep me posted.” Rafael leaned his back against the doorjamb, and Carmen at her desk made an impressive show of pretending not to notice them.

“Yeah." Sonny gave a weak smile over his shoulder. "You too.”

As he trudged down the bustling hallway, Sonny’s phone buzzed again in his pocket. Another message from Fin, and as Sonny knew from experience, one that changed the course of his entire week.

“TARU says there’s months of footage. Our vic might not be the only one.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Sunday, May 22nd, 5:40 PM**

“Alright kiddo,” Sonny said as he picked his niece, Julia, up from where she lay on her colorful baby blanket on his parents living room floor. He tucked her against his shoulder. “I think it’s time for your ma to change that diaper, huh?” The rhetorical question was half shouted, meant to stir Bella from the kitchen where she was bickering with Teresa and their mother; bickering was, after all, a key ingredient in every Sunday dinner.

“Can’t you get it, Uncle Sonny?” Bella called back, and he heard her tack on an exasperated _ what? _

“Uh, no?” he said, heading towards the kitchen. “Uncle Sonny can’t get it?”

“Chrissakes Bella,” Teresa said. “Change your daughter’s diaper already.” Trust Teresa to add the necessary spark, igniting the smoldering resentment that always lurked beneath the surface of any casual sibling banter.

Sonny leaned into the kitchen just as all three women began to shout.

“Teresa!”

“What, ma?”

“D’ya hear how she talks to me?” Bella waved half of a tomato that she’d been chopping in Teresa’s direction.

“The Lord’s name! On a Sunday!” His mother’s whisking became a furious action as she muttered to herself.

“Oh for Christ—shit.”

“Teresa Marie!” Their mother whipped around with whisk in hand, dripping a few fat drops of buttery-white sauce onto the linoleum floor as she spoke with her hands. “Watch your language!”

“Will you watch it with that!”

“Ma, it’s getting everywhere,” Bella said, pointing to the floor.

“Sorry to interrupt over here,” Sonny said from the doorway, then tilted his head towards his niece resting on his shoulder. “You gonna get this, Bella?”

Teresa wrinkled her nose. “Don’t bring her in here! Around the food! What's the matter with you?”

“Fine, Sonny, fine! God!”

“Bella!” Their mother shook her head. “Anyway, where’s your husband?”

“Dad’s showing him the—whatever! You know! Out back. Whatever retirement thing he’s doing this week.” She stalked over and plucked Julia from Sonny’s arms. “Here, gimme a hand with her at least.”

Teresa shot Sonny a pointed look, and he shrugged it off. Truthfully, he’d rather help out with the baby than to listen to any more of the bickering, or even worse, be subjected to a lecture on his father’s latest backyard venture. Tommy was much better at that. As he followed Bella through the house, he caught a windowed glimpse of the two men surveying the backyard, his father sweeping a broad arm toward the horizon, Tommy nodding dutifully beside him.

Upstairs, Sonny stood in the doorway of the childhood bedroom that Bella and Gina had once shared until Teresa moved out on her own and freed up space. Every once in a while, their parents made idle threats about getting rid of all their remaining childhood things, “reclaiming the space,” and yet the yellowing magazine cutouts and cheerleading trophies endured. Bella always set her changing supplies on her own bed now, and it was a strangely nostalgic thing to behold.

“They’re workin’ you too hard,” Bella said as she stripped her daughter of the offending diaper. “Everyone thinks so. Ma thinks so.”

“I should have known that’s what you all were squawking about in the kitchen.”

“No. We were _ squawking _ about Gina skipping Sundays with us for the third week this month.”

“That’s always what happens when she’s got a new boyfriend.” Sonny glanced around for somewhere to sit. The only viable seating in the room was a fuzzy pink chair that sat beneath a vanity covered in dusty cosmetics, and he turned it around backwards to sit on. He felt comically large, all knees and elbows. “Besides. You’re one to talk.”

“Me? You talking about the other weekend? When Julia had a cold?” Sonny raised a brow, and Bella feigned affront. “She did! You know she picked it up from daycare. From all those other germy babies.” 

“Sure.”

Her expression turned sly. “Look, okay? Making it over here every single Sunday can be rough.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” he said. “I get it.”

“Nah, I know. I’m serious, though, Sonny. You look… exhausted.”

“I am exhausted. I think I slept most of the day yesterday.” He could barely remember any daylight hours of his Saturday. He’d bumbled through some laundry and a quick evening chat with Rafael on the phone as he watched clothing swirl around inside the machine. 

“It’s not good for you.”

“Well, it’s only for another week or so.” 

“Do we believe that?” she cooed to Julia as she lifted up her fat legs. The smell of baby powder permeated the air.

“Hey. I’m covering for a guy whose wife just had a baby. Maybe you might get why that’s a nice thing to do, I dunno.” 

“Yeah, but that’s what you should be doing, Sonny! Getting out there. Meeting someone. Having babies.”

“’Scuse me?”

“You know what I mean. Making babies.”

He grimaced. “I’m not discussing that with my sister, thanks.” Especially not beneath a faded poster of a scowling Luke Perry, he thought.

She clicked her tongue. “I just want Julia to have cousins. She’s lonely.”

“She’s an _ infant_. And besides, Julia has plenty of cousins.”

“What, like Mia? She’s sixteen. Did you want to hang out with babies when you were sixteen?”

Sonny dragged a hand through his hair. It wasn’t as simple as just saying _ Hey Bella, actually I am seeing someone, and I’m actually doin’ real well aside from the baggy eyes and all. _

But… he wanted to say it. In fact, he realized that he was desperate to voice it, say anything to share the knowledge of it with someone else. To acknowledge that yeah, _ unpleasant things aside _ as Rafael had put it, he was actually really fucking happy these days.

“Hey,” he said, and before he could second-guess the impulse he forced the sentence out: “ah, can I talk to you for a sec? About that?”

“What, about Mia? Or babies? Or—”

“About seeing someone.” His heart began to wrack in his chest, and he kneaded a knuckle between his fingers.

“You seeing someone, Sonny?” She practically squealed the question and turned her full attention to him. He shushed her.

“Come on. Keep it down, it’s not national news or anything.”

“No, that’s so great! Who is it? Do I know her? Was it that lady’s daughter that ma was gonna set you up with? The one from the grocery store?”

“What? Ma, what? No. No—” That nerve he’d worked up began to falter. What if this admission changed things? Bella had always been his confidante growing up; Teresa was always just a bit too old for their daily struggles, and Gina… well Gina concocted so much drama on her own that she rarely had the time to spend on her siblings’ issues. “Nah, I’m seein’ this—ah, guy. A guy. He makes me really happy. Like, really happy. And look, I’m tellin’ you—only you—because I trust you, okay Bella?”

There was a beat, a second that felt infinite where Bella’s expression hardened, and for a second he worried that he’d put what little faith he could muster into the wrong family member. She bit her lip.

“Sonny, I’m—jeez. I’m happy. No really, I am.” She reached a free hand out to squeeze his bouncing knee. “I didn’t know. Seriously, I’m so happy for you. And I’m… sorry that you… I dunno… feel like you can’t tell people? Other people?” She looked back to Julia who was kicking her legs as she gurgled, and placed her gentle palm on Julia’s belly. “I’m so sorry.”

Relief escaped him in a strangled chuckle, and he put his face into his hands, rubbing at his brow with his thumbs. The fuzzy pink chair was far from the plush velvet of the confessional cushion, and yet the unburdening felt akin to the practice.

“Nah, you know what though?” Her resolve hardened and she turned back to Julia. “They’ll get it. The family. They will.”

He scoffed. “Really? You think?”

She tightened the fresh diaper around Julia’s waist as she squirmed and kicked. “Yeah. Right? You’re the golden boy around here anyway. They'll always love you no matter what.”

“What about...you know…all that _ ‘they’re just doin’ it for attention’ _ crap. You know what I’m talkin’ about.” It was a phrase often uttered by their father when faced with people whose choices he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—understand.

“Fuck that.” Sonny pointed to Julia as though to call out the language, but Bella waved him off. “She's an _ infant_, remember? And besides, I'm right. Seriously. Fuck that. You’re my big brother, and if they’re dicks about it, we’ll disown ‘em.”

Sonny snorted a laugh. “I don’t think it works like that.”

“I mean, like I wouldn’t announce it over Sunday dinner, y’know? Maybe, I dunno, bring the guy around first? Let them put a face to a name. Who is it, anyway? Is he cute?”

He couldn’t look at her, instead choosing to focus on the sharp angle of Luke Perry’s cheekbones as he explained. “It’s… um. You remember the guy who… Tommy’s case, right? The guy who put away his parole officer. The prosecutor.”

She tilted her head and squinted. “That... lawyer?”

“Barba. Rafael. Yeah.” He glanced in her direction, surprised to find her face alight.

“Wow, Sonny! That guy is like… a badass.”

“Ha. Yeah. He is.”

“With the fancy suits and everything? He seems loaded! Gina would be jealous. Man, Sonny…” She shook her head. “You sure you’re in that guy’s league?”

“Okay, yeah, thanks very much.”

“Really.” She gave him a smile that he recognized from every stage of their lives together, that shit-eating little-sister grin. “No like, maybe he could give you some pointers.” She leaned over and tugged at the sleeve of the silvery-blue shirt he’d chosen for Mass, now wrinkled and loose at the collar. To his own credit, it had looked sharper that morning than it did after an afternoon of entertaining Julia on his parents’ living room floor.

Sonny’s phone began to buzz in his pocket. “Yeah, yeah. Real funny. I gotta take this.” He stood from the chair and walked out into the hallway. “Carisi.”

It was Fin. “Hey Carisi, look, I gotta take you off overnights this week. I need you on this nightclub case.”

Sonny lowered his voice. “We got the footage back?”

“Yeah. Tape only went a few months back, so we don’t know who set the camera up yet, but this shit is unbelievable. Let’s just say that bathroom was banking way more business than the bar was.”

“What, like drugs?”

“Drugs, trafficking, you name it that camera caught it. Only thing that wasn’t happening in there was what you’d expect in the bathroom, if you get me. We don’t have specifics yet, but we’re working on making some IDs. We sent a copy over to Narcotics to see if they recognize any of the dealers. Oh and get this, we’ve got a few other assaults by our bouncer on the tape. We’ll need to figure out who these other women are.”

As Fin debriefed him, Sonny walked down the stairs and out onto the small front porch for some air. Outside, Teresa’s daughter Mia was perched on one of the white plastic porch chairs scrolling on her cellphone, and she made a quick strange motion when the screen door creaked open, like she were tossing something into the hedges beside the porch. She gave Sonny a saccharine smile, then went back to her phone. He made a mental note to revisit that situation.

“So let me guess,” Sonny said as he walked down the front walkway. “Our bouncer didn’t know about the camera when he decided to rough up customers?” 

“Apparently not. Still not much on conversation, but he told Rollins he figured it’d belong to the club owner, Tony DaPonte. Said the guy’s a real creep.”

“Pot, meet kettle. And now we’re picking up DaPonte? Should I come in?”

“Nah. Take the day and come tomorrow morning. We’re trying not to spook him while we wait on word from Narcotics. Far as he knows, he’s coming in tomorrow to provide a character witness for his... problem employee.”

“Don’t you think he knows we’ve got his camera, though?” 

“Maybe it wasn’t his,” Fin said. “Besides, even if he does know we have it, how would we know that it’s his? Maybe he plays it off?”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess that’s true. Sure you don’t want me to come in now?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Carisi,” Fin said, and before Sonny could respond, he heard the static click of a hang-up.

The whine of the screen door caught his attention, and Sonny turned to see Teresa darkening the doorway. “Dinner’s just about ready you two,” she said, beckoning for them to come in. “And stop wasting your life on that thing,” she said to Mia, who made a show of rolling her eyes the moment her mother’s back was turned.

Sonny climbed back up the porch stairs. He perched on the railing by where Mia still sat, in clear defiance mother’s directive. “Y’know, I had this old partner when I was in Homicide. Real good guy. The kinda guy who’d be the first one to give you the shirt off his back.”

A glimmer of curiosity broke through Mia’s bored expression and she tucked her phone into her pocket. “Yeah?”

“Lung cancer,” Sonny said, then nodded toward the bushes where he assumed Mia had tossed the butt of a secret cigarette. “Smoked a pack a day.”

She made an earnest attempt at playing innocent, giving a wide-eyed _What?_ before inevitably wilting under the practiced gaze of a seasoned interrogator. “God, Uncle Sonny, don't snitch on me, okay? It was just one. I'm not like... a smoker or anything.”

“Yeah, well, don't let me see it again.” He held the front door for her, and she trudged inside.

His old partner, Harry MacNeil, indeed had a lung cancer scare back when they worked together, and probably due in no small part to his pack-a-day habit. Harry’s cancer was discovered by chance though, during the imaging required after taking a gunshot wound to the abdomen. It had been detected early enough that the prognosis had been overwhelmingly optimistic and required very little treatment, but all of that information took away from the gravitas of Sonny’s anecdote.

And, truthfully, the guy wasn’t half as nice as Sonny had said. MacNeil had made it a point to call him “rookie” from his first day in Homicide until two years later when he made the move to Special Victims. MacNeil’s parting advice? “At least our vics can’t lie about being dead.”

As Sonny followed Mia through to the family dinner table, he wondered about Harry and what he must be up to these days. Probably still smoking, at the very least.

After dinner had been thoroughly enjoyed and cleared from the table, and dessert had been hinted at but not yet produced, Sonny stole away to the quiet escape of the backyard. He found a clearing underneath a tree by the fence-line and brought up Rafael’s contact in his phone. As the phone rang, he watched shadows play across the family’s kitchen window, warm with light against the dimming evening sky.

“Hello?”

Sonny smiled at the sound of Rafael’s voice. He let his shoulder thump against the strong tree trunk beside him. “Hey. It’s me.”

“You know, the phone tells me that information.”

“Ah. Okay. See I wasn’t sure if you had your reading glasses on yet.” 

The pointed silence that followed gave Sonny all the satisfaction he needed. 

“Hm. Yes. Well. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Family just finished dinner. Waiting on dessert before I get Bella to give me a ride to the train.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It was. How was lunch with your mom?”

“Hmm? Oh. Right. Delightful.”

Sonny chuckled. “Sounds like it. Hey, no more posters in her hallway?”

“No.” Rafael took a beat. “Not since Friday. She asked about you, of course.”

His cheeks flushed. “Yeah? I mean, I tend to make a big impression on people.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Sonny turned to rest his back against the tree trunk. “So? What’d you say about me?”

“About you?” He could hear rustling in the background, and he imagined that Rafael was curling himself tightly in the crook of his couch, or maybe comfortably perching himself against the pillows in his bed with a book discarded at his side. It was a comforting image. “That you’re my biggest fan.”

“Ha. Okay. Should have guessed you’d make it about you.”

“That you’re after my job, and you’ve been following me around the courthouse like some lost puppy.”

“Yeah? Is that how it is?” 

“Yes. I’m partial to it, though.” 

Sonny looked up to the dusky sky bisected by fading contrails, brushstroke wisps of clouds. His heart felt dangerously full, and yet that fact only amplified the loneliness that washed over him.

“Yeah, sure you are. In that scenario you’re the one bein’ fawned over.”

Rafael’s voice went low and soft. “I think I’ve… returned the favor. I just didn’t feel the compulsion to share that information with my own mother over lunch, you understand I’m sure.”

Heat prickled at the back of his neck. Before he could venture further down that inviting trail of thought, Bella’s sharp voice from the door snapped him back. “Sonny, what’re you doin’ out there? Your ice cream is melting!”

“Jesus.” Startled, he put a hand over the phone and called back, “Be right there, okay? I gotta take this.”

She gave him a bemused look, half-smile. “Yeah, okay, sure. Hurry up, though. Julia’s getting fussy.”

“Dessert calls?” Rafael asked in his ear, and Sonny turned his back to the house, staring at the neighbor’s hedgerow and the peaks of their vibrant patio umbrella above it.

“Yeah. Hey, but looks like Fin’s pulling me off overnights though.”

“Oh, really?”

“Says this nightclub case is hot and he needs all hands on deck. The footage came back and we gotta start chasing down leads.”

“Hm. So, busy week ahead regardless.”

“Yeah. For both of us, probably. The lieutenant’s getting back pretty soon too.” A beat of silence passed, underscored by the sounds of lazy suburban traffic. “You got any weekend plans?” Sonny asked.

“Next weekend you mean? Nothing comes to mind at the moment, barring whatever misery is bound to cross my desk this week.”

“Yeah well. Maybe something less miserable could come around. Like on Friday night, you know, and bring dinner.”

Rafael huffed a laugh. “That’s an extremely specific maybe.”

“Just spitballin’.”

“Well, okay. I’ll put maybe in the calendar.”

“Great. Yeah. ‘Kay. So, I’ll be seein’ ya, then.”

“Yes. You will. Have a good night.”

“You too, Raf— wait, hey, make sure your door is locked, okay? Did you lock it? And your windows?”

“_Good night, Sonny _.”

He watched the call fade away from the screen of his phone, then looked back to the screen door where a flash of color disappeared in an instant. Bella had been watching, he was sure of it. 

Sonny whispered a prayer to himself, as he headed back towards the house, that the week ahead would be an easy sprint to Friday. He knew it wouldn't be, but he wanted credit for lodging the request anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your support and feedback and friendship! You guys keep me going ❤❤❤
> 
> Always glad to have new friends on [tumblr](http://oh-little-owl.tumblr.com/)/[twitter](https://twitter.com/ohlittleowl) (tho these days I'm more active on the latter).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the grand tradition of procrastinating nanowrimo (on day one, no less!), I decided to put this chapter out into the world. I feel compelled to mention that it is mainly plot-furthering, and is primarily a Sonny chapter. 
> 
> TW: Minor-Character Suicide

* * *

**Monday, May 23rd, 2016 - 8:45 AM**

The precinct was humming with the usual level of activity when Sonny arrived that morning, though one unmistakably smug voice rose above the din.

“And I’m sure that you had every intention of notifying my client, Mr. DaPonte, that he was a suspect in your ongoing investigation, Detective Tutuola.” 

John Buchanan. He stood beside Fin’s desk, his suit jacket discarded on a nearby empty chair and a fresh bloom of summer sweat darkening the base of his crisp collar. Sonny watched the conversation unfold as he set his own things on his desk.

“We just wanted to ask your_ client _some questions about his employee, Douglas Hess,” Fin said. “That’s the bouncer at his club. The one who’s been attacking women on the clock. Multiple women. You know that guy?” He leaned back casually in his chair with his fingers steepled over his chest.

“See, now I think you’re actually willfully obscuring a valuable part of the equation, Detective Tutuola.”

“Yeah? Well, where’s your client? Maybe he could help clear things up for me. Hey Carisi,” Fin called out, leaning around Buchanan to catch Sonny’s eye. “You see anyone checking in just now?”

Buchanan turned to face Sonny, his Cheshire grin hardening into something predatory. “If it isn’t Detective Carisi. Or should I say counselor?”

“Nah,” Fin said. “Carisi’s got morals.”

Sonny wasn’t sure which comment irritated him more, so he let them hang in the air with little more than a flick of his brow.

Buchanan chuckled. “Well, nonetheless, I heard congratulations are in order. Perhaps now that you’re credentialed, you can help your fellow detective out with some of the more basic proceedings—”

“I didn’t see anyone checking in,” Sonny said, cutting Buchanan off. “When was he supposed to be here?”

“Twenty minutes ago,” Fin replied. “Look who we got instead.”

“Lucky us.”

“Indeed,” Buchanan said, smoothing the curved line of buttons along his chest. “And I do hope that NYPD won’t be springing any more of these surprises on Mr. DaPonte. It’s downright unprofessional.” He lingered on the word unprofessional a second too long, glancing at Sonny as though he were in on some underlying joke.

Sonny crossed his arms. “Alright, cut the crap. Where’s your client?”

“Now detective, I don’t make a habit of personally parking outside of my clients houses at night.” Buchanan raised his palms. “I always got the impression that you officers were… good at that sort of thing. Keeping a real close eye on folks.”

Was he imagining Buchanan’s pointed attention? A guilty image flashed in his mind: Rafael’s hotel, the view of it from the department vehicle outside where Sonny often idled after their visits, compelled to watch the entrance, half bathed in reverence, excitement coursing through his veins, and half out of the eternal worry that it would all slip through his graceless fingers.

The memory sharpened his tone. “You talk to him today, counselor? Yeah? Did you remind him of how good citizens with nothing to worry about don’t make a habit of ducking the police?”

Buchanan’s grin faltered. “In fact, I haven’t. He only just retained my services. Yesterday, actually. Said it was an emergency, that he was going to be interviewed here today and he worried that NYPD was going to try and pin something on him.”

“What, DaPonte have you on speed dial?” Fin asked. “He get in a lot of trouble?”

“Quite the contrary, Detective Tutuola. I think you will find my client has a sterling reputation in his community on top of his pristine record. His nightclub is a cornerstone of the neighborhood economy. No, word-of-mouth tends to go a long way in my business.”

Fin’s expression remained unmoved. “Huh. It sure does.” He tilted his head. “Carisi, you and Rollins want to pay this paragon of the community a visit? See if he forgot his appointment?”

“Sure thing,” Sonny said, then looked to find Rollins’ adjoining desk empty.

“Coffee,” Fin said, anticipating the question and nodding towards the break-room.

As Sonny turned to head that way, Buchanan called out: “Maybe I’ll see you at this year’s Bar Association banquet, Detective? Their catering is always top-notch.”

Sonny rolled his eyes and stayed his course, not wanting to spare Buchanan the satisfaction of a response.

True to Fin’s word, Sonny found Rollins doctoring up a mug of coffee. She glanced in his direction, her eyes dim and puffy. “Hey Carisi,” she said, with little trace of her usual spark.

“Hey. So ah, Fin wants us to check out DaPonte’s apartment, see if he got cold feet.”

She gave him a grim look. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he and his cold feet skipped town.”

“Maybe. But, why would he hire Buchanan then? You don’t make that kind of commitment lightly. And look, if we don’t find him, Buchanan’s billing office definitely will, right? I can’t imagine his weekend rates.”

A hint of a smile crossed her lips. “You’re probably right.”

“Hey, Rollins, you feeling okay?”

“Teething,” she said simply, then took a long sip of her coffee. “Yeah, y’know, I think someone replaced my cute baby girl with a gremlin or something.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry. Bella swears by one of those freezer ring things. Looks like a frog. I can get a recommendation if you want.”

Rollins gave a tight shrug. “Anyway. You drivin’?”

“You want me to drive? Man, you must be tired.”

“Yeah. I am. So let me just get my helmet and we’ll head over.”

“Alright, yeah, very funny. You know what? Don’t quit your day job.”

She bumped his shoulder as she passed by; amicable, a familiar gesture that made him miss their easy camaraderie. He felt guilty for how strained their friendship had felt lately, especially knowing how much he truly owed her. Those weekly dinners and mindless television binges in the aftermath of the homeless shelter operation had kept him grounded. The evenings where Jesse had fallen asleep across his chest and Rollins had let her stay, her steady baby breaths a metronome for his anxious heart, they buoyed his sanity amidst his crisis of faith. Sonny vowed to himself that once they cleared this case, he’d make a point to reinstate their dinner schedule.

**344 West 72****nd** ** St. - 9:50 AM**

DaPonte’s apartment building was the kind of place that Sonny’s family would call _ swanky_. Upper West Side with waterfront views; rounded, modern architecture that bowed outside the constraints of neighboring boxy façades; white stone, gilded edges, blue glass glinting in the summer sun. Inside, abstract sculptures lined the opulent lobby, and a well-dressed doorman was parked at a sprawling front desk.

_Swanky._

“Hey,” Sonny said, approaching the uniformed doorman stationed at the front desk, holding up his badge in one hand. “You know a Tony DaPonte? Apartment…” He glanced to Rollins beside him, who supplied: “1485.”

“Um, yes?”

“He leave the building today?”

“I don’t… think so?”

“Or last night?” Rollins added.

“I didn’t um… I wasn’t here last night.” The doorman idly rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well, if you remember seeing him around,” Sonny said, producing a card, “or anything out of the ordinary, just gimme a ring at this number, alright?”

They found the elevators tucked away in an alcove, and as Rollins pressed the button for the 14th floor, Sonny glanced back to the doorman’s desk to see that the man was scrutinizing the card.

As the golden elevator doors closed behind them, encircling them in lush velvet-and-mahogany paneling, Rollins was the first to speak: “This place is…” She looked around, seeming to search for the appropriate descriptor.

“Swanky?” Sonny offered.

She gave an amused snort, and shook her head. “Sure. Okay. I mean, I knew he owned a popular club, but this is like...”

“Yeah. Tony’s doing well for himself, it looks like.”

“Too well, maybe?”

Sonny shrugged. “Not if he’s running a couple of side hustles.”

“Honestly, I think the club might be the side hustle here.”

They exited the elevator into a painted hallway, sparsely dotted with doorways and nondescript doormats. As they approached 1485, Rollins nodded for Sonny to go ahead. One hand instinctively found the holster at his belt while he knocked with the other. “Anthony DaPonte, are you in there?” On the third knuckle tap, the door gave way with a low whine. It wasn’t locked, and the latch hadn’t entirely caught.

Sonny looked to Rollins, who pressed her palm to her holster and nodded.

“Anthony DaPonte, this is NYPD, are you in here?” Sonny called out as he nudged the door open with his knee, revealing a short hallway that opened into what looked to be a living room, well-lit by wide windows that overlooked the waterfront. A few pairs of expensive leather shoes were lined neatly down the hallway. Sonny cleared some initial ground, then waved Rollins to follow him in.

The apartment was well-kept, sparsely decorated with a few large pieces of swirling art reminiscent of tornadoes hung on wide walls. An enormous flat screen television was mounted above a sleek modern fireplace. The living room opened into an airy kitchen with stainless appliances fit for Michelin-starred restaurant.

Beyond the kitchen, a darkened hallway stretched, and a distant watery _ plop _ sound prickled at the fine hairs on Sonny’s neck.

“This is NYPD,” Sonny called out as he flagged to Rollins that he’d take the hallway while she was sweeping the details of the kitchen. “If you’re in here, come out with your hands up.”

_ Plop. _

A sliver of light cut diagonally from a far door, out and across the darkened hallway. Sonny’s adrenaline surged. Something was wrong here. Really wrong.

_ Plop. _

He pushed open the first door he encountered, revealing a home office. This room was much more cluttered, with papers were strewn everywhere and the drawers of a sleek desk hanging half-open.

_ Plop. _

As Sonny approached the door spilling light at the end of the hallway, he called out NYPD one last time. He knew it was a futile effort.

The backsplash on the bathtub was the first thing that he noticed; a mosaic, speckled like television static, all greys and whites, the familiar image eerily matching that keening whine that overtook his brain, the hiss of white noise that settled between his ears as the rest of the details filled in.

Bright red stippling the greyscale backsplash.

Inky water brimming at the lip of the tub.

Thick swirl of tattoos on the guy’s shoulder where they just breached the surface.

The loll of his head.

The drip of the faucet. The way it rippled.

_ Plop. _

“In here, Rollins!” he called out hoarsely as he crossed himself. “Call a bus!”

**344 West 72****nd** ** St. - 11:44 AM**

Once Sonny had finished knocking on the doors of the nearest residents, an effort that bore no results, he made his way back down the hallway to DaPonte’s apartment. The scene was now swarming with uniformed officers, some bagging and tagging evidence, others dusting surfaces for prints. Inside, Sonny spotted Rollins standing near the peninsula of the open kitchen, in the company of a broad-shouldered man, someone he could only assume was a plainclothes officer. He wedged himself at her side and offered a hand. “Carisi. SVU.”

“Detective Matt Emmich,” the officer replied, enveloping Sonny’s hand in a brisk, calloused shake. “Here with the Gun Trace unit. I was just chatting with your partner, what a scene huh?” He clicked his tongue. “Never gets easier.”

Sonny knew about the Gun Trace unit -- a city-wide task force aimed at crippling the network of illegal guns on the streets. It was an initiative undertaken by City Hall, and being that it was an election year, the _unparalleled successes _of the Gun Trace unit had been front page fodder for months. “So what, you guys got a lead here?

Emmich rolled back on his heels. “Ah, don’t worry folks, I’m not here to step on any toes. Narcotics had tipped us off to your boy-o in there. Said you guys found footage of this guy DaPonte working with some big-name dealers. When we heard the dispatch...”

“Narcotics?” Sonny asked before realizing that he’d played his hand with the question. The curling satisfaction in Emmich’s grin made him regret the admission.

“Oh, so they didn’t loop you in?” Emmich clicked his tongue again. “Huh.”

“We hadn’t shared notes yet,” Rollins said, then crossed her arms and shifted her weight uneasily. “We were waiting on word.”

But Emmich seemed to be looking beyond them, toward a uniformed officer headed their way and holding up a bagged pistol. “Got it,” the officer said to Emmich.

“Woah woah,” Sonny said as the two men exchanged the bagged weapon. “Wait, what are you doing with that?”

Emmich huffed a laugh. “DaPonte was a dealer, right? And dealers’ guns? Likely used in the commission of other crimes. So that means we get to take this. Any other questions?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks for the lesson,” Rollins said.

“Anytime, detective.” He gave a parting salute before ushering his fellow officer into the entryway.

“Wow. So that guy was a piece of work, huh?” Sonny shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“Yeah. That’s one way to put it.” Rollins snorted. “Well, okay, so I’ll call Fin and loop him in. Maybe _ he’s _heard from Narcotics. And he should probably know where our weapon just went.” Rollins left for the hallway with her phone pressed to her ear, and Sonny watched the techs wheel a gurney out of the hallway, heading toward the entryway. He stepped further into the kitchen to make room for their path. For a brief moment, Sonny wondered what meals would look like produced with appliances like these at your disposal, as opposed to the lengths he had to go to in his own cramped kitchenette where the electric stovetop was likely older than he was.

DaPonte had to have a lot going on beneath the surface for suicide to be the only viable route, Sonny thought as he cataloged the contents of the kitchen. Rollins had speculated that the club was the side hustle in Anthony DaPonte’s entrepreneurial empire, and if so, maybe he thought he had foreseen the fate of his house of cards and decided this was the easier path to travel. Admittedly, prison would be one heck of a downgrade from this lifestyle. Then again, if the guy was going to kill himself... why did he hire a lawyer first? 

Sonny wandered down the hallway, stopping in the first doorway: the home office he’d encountered earlier. An enormous, dark wood desk dominated the space, and the paperwork Sonny had seen strewn about the room was now mostly collected into piles. A female officer stood slowly from where she had been crouching behind the desk and gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

“Hey,” he said to the officer, “what have we got in here?”

“Not a whole lot, despite appearances,” she said, dusting off her knees. “Looks like he might have destroyed some of his things beforehand. We haven’t found any electronics, and all this paperwork everywhere looks like it’s gotta be five years old at least. Plus, there’s some weird residue down under the desk, like maybe he had something duct-taped down here? A stash maybe?”

Sonny grimaced. “We considering the possibility someone, you know, destroyed this stuff for him?”

She gave a slight shrug. “Well there wasn’t a note with the body. We haven’t found one yet. And we got guys canvassing the dumpsters in the area for anything suspicious. Could have been a hit job, I guess. They were professionals if so. Most surfaces are immaculate.”

A CSU tech joined Sonny in the doorway, and Sonny stepped in to allow him room to poke his head in. “Is Detective Emmich in here?” the tech asked.

“He’s gone,” Sonny said, thumbing over his shoulder. “Their unit just left with the weapon.”

“Really?” The tech held up a small bag that held a nub of flattened metal. “Thought they would have wanted this.”

“That the bullet?” Sonny asked.

“We just got it out. Cracked the tiles and pipes, but the brick caught it. Lucky for the neighbors.”

“Hey, if I was paying this kind of rent, the walls better be impenetrable,” the female officer said.

“Anyway, the Trace unit probably didn’t need to take it,” Sonny said. “Can’t trace it, right?”

The tech shrugged. “Sure. But standard protocol says we confirm the caliber match, yeah?”

Sonny furrowed his brow. “They didn’t even look at it?”

“Like I said, we only just got it out of the wall now. Just recovered the casing from the tub too now that we could drain it. The other Gun Trace officer damn near contaminated the scene getting the weapon out.”

Sonny furrowed his brow. “Yeah. Okay. Huh. Send it for processing, we’ll just catch up with them and have ‘em dot the I's.”

The CSU tech nodded and left the room with the bullet.

“That’s figures,” the female officer said to Sonny, shaking her head. “A couple of showboating headlines and those task force guys think they can leave the actual police work to us beaters.”

He gave her a weak smile in commiseration. Something had been bugging him about the entire exchange with Emmich; a vague, unsettled feeling. It was now underscored by how brazenly careless those guys had apparently been with a crime scene.

“Anyway, let us know if you guys find a note,” Sonny said, heading towards the doorway.

“Sure thing, Detective.”

Out in the building’s hallway, Rollins was finishing up a phone call by the elevators, but it sounded to Sonny like the person on the other end was likely not Fin. 

“Okay, yeah, I know, I gotta go.” She sighed and pushed her bangs off her forehead. “Yeah, okay, love you too.” The words rang flat, and upon noticing Sonny, she quickly ended the call.

“Looping in Fin, huh?” He raised a brow.

“Family stuff,” she said. “Sorry. I talked to Fin first, he said to clean up and come back. He’s going to hold onto Buchanan—who is apparently still availing himself of our coffee and vending machines. Buchanan was one of the last people we know talked to DaPonte, so.”

“So we’re taking a run at Buchanan, huh?”

“Apparently,” she replied, taking less merriment from the prospect than he would have imagined.

“Who gets to do the honors?” Sonny asked as Rollins called an elevator.

“I dunno.”

After a beat of silence, Sonny began again: “So... family stuff?”

Rollins gave him a grim smile as they entered the elevator. “Come over sometime and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Yeah, look, Rollins, about that—”

“You don’t—”

“I’m sorry. It’s just, I’ve had a lot on my plate... a lot on my mind since... you know, with Dodds and all. I’m sorry that we stopped hanging out.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it Carisi.” Her tone was artfully bright, a sudden change, and he knew she was too easily won over for it to signal true forgiveness. 

“Seriously. Amanda. I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” she said. “So don’t worry about it. Apology accepted.”

While part of him wanted to press the issue, her feigned niceties, he knew it wouldn’t do any good at this juncture. She responded to actions, not words, and who was he to blame her for that?

“Well, anyway,” he said. “I would like to hear about it, you know.”

“Yeah. You will soon, I’m sure.” She gave him another perfunctory smile, then set to straightening her mussed bangs in the elevator door reflection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your feedback and support, and for coming along on this journey! It truly means the world to me ❤❤
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ohlittleowl) mainly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive, and still have every intent of continuing this, so I apologize for the long delay. Sporadic posting is my specialty! This chapter is actually part of a bigger section that got broken in half, so the next chapter will be posted very soon! And then hopefully it won't be 3 months in between, oops. 
> 
> Thanks as always for your continued support and feedback. Having this universe to come back to is one of my greatest joys amidst the daily drudge. 
> 
> Dedicated to ash (abogadobarba), whose birthday is coming up (woohoo!), and whose continual support is a blessing that I have no idea how I earned!

**Friday, May 27th, 2016 - 6:36 PM**

Forlini's was not quite what Sonny had in mind when he had suggested tentative evening plans with Rafael on that phone call that now felt like an eternity ago. When Sonny called him, a tangle of nerves and excitement for the prospect of their free evening to be spent, he had caught Rafael at the tail end of a “last minute meeting,” and Rafael requested that they meet for drinks first. 

So, fine. Forlini’s. He didn’t mind taking the edge off of a frustrating week filled with dead ends and unanswered phone calls, a litany of cold sandwiches eaten at his desk amidst the endless forms in triplicate. The late afternoon sun bore through the dusty windows, filtering over dark wood fixtures in shades of gold and casting a hazy glow over the bustling patrons. 

Rafael slid into the opposite side of the booth, breaking Sonny from his thoughts on the day. He sat his glass down on the faded tablecloth and spared a brief smile across the table. 

“Subterfuge, huh?” Sonny raised a brow, and Rafael laughed into his drink. “When you told me to grab a booth in the back I was wondering if we were gonna have code names or something.”

“Hm? Not-- no, not like that,” Rafael said, his expression one of amiable confusion. He shook his head, leaned back and rolled his neck. “The bar gets noisy at this hour. A booth is better. For talking.” Sonny noted that the small stretch of bar-top that spanned this side of the restaurant had filled considerably since he had arrived, populated by slick-suited lawyers tucking into glasses of wine, parking their weathered briefcases on stools as they debriefed each other. 

Sonny wondered if Buchanan might be lurking somewhere in the throngs, if he ought to be worried by that particular prospect, but rationalized that at least the man would be easy to spot in a crowd if so. “Hey, did you finally get that deal with the Tin Spoon bouncer? Hess? I know his lawyer was stalling you yesterday—”

Rafael’s expression went grim. “It’s not my case anymore.”

“Huh? What do you mean it’s not your case?”

“That’s what the meeting was about. Earlier. The one that you interrupted.”

Sonny clicked his tongue. “Ah yeah, sorry about that. Nah, but what? They took you off? How come?”

“You want what they told me or the truth?” Rafael flicked a brow, then took a long sip of his drink. “Because I’ve only got what they told me.”

“Enlighten me.”

“The DA has taken a _ special interest_.”

“In some low-life bouncer at a nightclub? An open-and-shut case?” Sonny squinted. “That makes no sense.”

“He shuffled the caseload and Hess wound up going to someone else.” Rafael shrugged. “Fresh eyes, so to speak.”

Sonny pushed back in his seat. “You know what? That figures. No, really, it does. It's like this whole case—well, it’s been bugging me, if I’m being honest. I can’t put my finger on it, but it's this picky stuff, you know? Like that. Like them shuffling the case around to someone else. Like us being stonewalled by Gun Trace and Narcotics about the scene at DaPonte's apartment this whole week. We were the ones who shared the recovered footage from the bathroom, right? That led us to this guy? And so as soon as the ME calls it a suicide, they just stop answering our calls. Tell us to _ stick to our lane_. So much for interdepartmental cooperation, am I right?” Rafael rolled his eyes. “And then there was that whole teary tribute they ran in the paper the other day, you see that?”

“The cover story? How could I miss it?”

“The _ tragic decline _ of a _ seminal venue _ in the Bowery scene,” Sonny said, punctuating the sentence with air quotes. “I mean, that reporter came pretty damn close to saying that uncovering this whole scandal caused DaPonte to kill himself outta shock and sadness. About as close as a guy could come to saying it while maintaining a shred of journalistic integrity, that is. Makes me wonder who they’ve got feeding them intel. Their guy seems a hell of a lot more talkative than my colleagues.”

“So, there are interests at stake,” Rafael said simply. “Clearly this has pinged someone’s radar, and the narrative is being spun. Damage control.”

“Yeah, I mean I hate to say it but this feels a lot like we found something we weren’t supposed to, you know? Like…” Sonny trailed off, then took a swig of his drink and licked his lips. “Ah, I dunno, we’ve been chasing down all these empty leads all week, trying to rustle up what was actually going on in that nightclub. I was just… really looking forward to getting a break from it all tonight with you.” 

Rafael chuckled. “Me too,” he said quietly, fondly, glancing down at his knuckles as he spoke. “Well it’s out of our hands, anyway. The case. Hess will get whatever sweetheart deal is coming to him—”

“Which leaves bull for our vic, right? Our _ vics_. You know what? Drinks were a good idea.” 

“I’m full of those,” Rafael replied.

“Yeah. See, that’s why I like you.” 

“My good ideas?”

“Among other things.” The words tumbled out before Sonny could think better of their surroundings, their earnest attempts at discretion, but Rafael’s unbidden smile was worth the slight error in judgement. In that moment Rafael looked almost shy, rolling the final dregs of his drink around the bottom of his glass and paying pointed attention to the movement. 

Sonny realized then that no matter what bullshit they’d left behind, bullshit that would likely still be waiting on their desks come Monday morning, the two of them had made it to Friday relatively unscathed. They had the blank canvas of an evening laid out before them, maybe even a weekend, and it was a rare gift that Sonny intended to savor.

“Hey,” Sonny said, and Rafael lifted his gaze once more. “Let me get the next one?” He gestured to Rafael’s glass.

Rafael weighed the question for a beat before tipping the glass in Sonny’s direction and allowing him to take it. “Generous,” he said. As Sonny scooted out of the booth, Rafael added: “That’s why I like you. Well, one of the reasons.”

Sonny practically floated to the bar. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this exhilarated. The times they had spent in Rafael’s hotel room were always shrouded in secrecy and the very real fear of some unknowable threat lurking in the alleys; sure, some of that fear was still relevant to Sonny, but tonight things just felt different. He felt on the precipice of something wholly good.

Sonny found empty bar-top real estate between a pair of well-dressed women with matching haircuts scoping the room, and an older lawyer he couldn't quite place but knew he'd encountered before. The man nodded in vague recognition, confirming that hunch, and Sonny flashed him a brief smile before flagging down the bartender. As he waited for their drinks to be prepared, Sonny glanced back over to their booth only to find Rafael now fielding a phone call, covering his free ear with his hand to better hear. He hoped it wasn't the DA's office delivering Rafael bleak news to dampen the evening's mood.

Rafael began to rake his free hand through the fine hair on the back of his head, back and forth. It was bad news. Had to be. Sonny’s heart sank. 

He had spent every idle moment at his desk that week wondering what this evening might hold for them, and somehow he hadn’t prepared himself for one of the most obvious trajectories: that work would get in the way. With a case like Tin Spoon, its inscrutable truths lurking just beneath the surface, why didn’t he foresee this outcome?

Sonny grabbed their drinks as soon as they were delivered to him and wove deftly back to their booth, catching only the final seconds of Rafael’s conversation.

“Of course,” Rafael said, his eyes already forming an apology to Sonny. “Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thank you.” Sonny placed their drinks down, tentative, and Rafael waved his own away as he hung up. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on? Was that the DA?” 

Rafael fumbled for his wallet in his pocket, graceless, and Sonny was struck by a sense of déjà vu. He was reminded of the time they had sat angled together at the deli counter in the wake of those exhumed bins of evidence all caked in dirt, those annals of sin buried in the chapel graveyard. How Rafael had changed in an instant that afternoon, electrified by some message on his phone, and how Sonny missed the response for what it was: dread. 

“Raf, hey, is everything okay?”

He fished a few bills from his wallet. “Lorena. My mother’s neighbor. Or, she was. Our neighbor. Before, when I”—he shook his head—“She took my mother to the ER. It’s her heart, maybe, they’re not sure. Lorena didn’t seem worried now, but she’s always been like that. Unflappable. I don’t know.”

“Jesus, Raf. I’m sorry.”

Rafael held the bills, considering them before placing them on the table. “I—”

“Keep it,” Sonny said, pushing them back towards Rafael. “I’ll pay the tab, you call us a car, okay? I mean, ‘cause tell me if I’m overstepping here, but I want to help. You know, if I can.” 

Sonny’s words brought a trace of a smile to Rafael’s lips. “Of course you do,” he replied, though his tone was slightly sharper than his expression would have suggested.

“So go call the car then,” Sonny repeated, unfazed, and took a hefty gulp of his drink to try and get a few dollars’ worth out of it at least. His eyes prickled. 

Rafael exited the booth but stopped short of leaving, instead pressing a palm against the back of his vinyl seat. “I’m—thank you,” he said. 

“Raf. Of course.”

**Mount Sinai Morningside - 8:03 PM **

Once a kind nurse in purple scrubs had taken Rafael back into the inner workings of the hospital, Sonny scoped the waiting room out for its one lone Keurig. The small counter that housed the machine was lined with Styrofoam cups and a bleak array of flavored coffee pods. He made himself a watery Colombian blend, and took it over to a bank of empty seats he’d claimed. Sonny tried to focus his nervous attention on the television attached to a nearby wall, the local news being fed to its audience in sporadic chunks of closed captioning text.

After a few minutes of a feature on the race towards Election Day, Sonny’s phone buzzed with a message: “She’s stable. Vitals are good. EKG was fine. Potassium is a little low. Waiting on the doctor's word.” 

“that’s good,” Sonny wrote back. “need anything?”

Rafael’s response was quick: “A vacation.”

Sonny laughed. “i’m limited to whatever’s in the vending machines. sorry,” he wrote, then added: “i wouldn’t mind one of those myself.”

There was no immediate response. Sonny tucked his phone back into his pocket and spread his knees wide. He leaned back in his chair, feeling exhaustion pricking at the edges of his consciousness. 

His mind wandered to the last time he was waiting for news in a hospital. Dodds. He could see that endless hallway that stretched toward Dodds’ darkened room; Benson, her shoulders sagging underneath the weight of it all as she walked the length of it. He banished that thought as quick as it came. It felt like bad luck to dwell on ghosts here. 

Sonny tried to focus on the television again, a stream of commercials blending into each other, but found himself distracted by the patients milling around the crowded waiting room, coughing into their elbows and rocking colicky toddlers. He honed in on a man sitting a few rows over, murmuring to himself as he held an ice pack over a darkening lump on his bald head. It reminded him of the time Tommy had managed to give himself a black eye trying to open a bag of chips and how he said to anyone who would listen: _ you should’ve seen the other fry. _

He became acutely aware of the disease vector he was likely submitting himself to while sitting here, and his reserve faltered slightly. Sonny’s arms began to itch at the thought of all the germs around him. He was overwhelmed by the need to get some fresh air. He briefly considered telling Rafael he’d come back later, but Sonny couldn’t bring himself to actually leave at a time like this. When his own grandmother had started her downward decline, every manner of Carisi (and a few Nybergs on his mother’s side) had overtaken that small hospital, held vigil together in her warmly lit room where a white noise machine syncopated ocean waves with her final breaths. It was a comfort to be among family in those moments, for better or worse, and he didn’t like thinking of anyone enduring a hospital visit alone. Sonny scanned the room and found a lone dispenser of hand-sanitizer mounted to a far wall like a beacon of hope. He made a quick pilgrimage, feeling instantly soothed by the cool sting of the foam on his palms. 

The local news faded into entertainment news; his half-drunk coffee went sludgy and cold. The patients in the waiting room became familiar fixtures until they filtered through the system and out of the waiting room, replaced by new people with new symptoms and new cell phone arguments with their insurance companies. 

Sonny finally received another text from Rafael around 11, when the entertainment news had shifted into the first in a line of late night talk shows. “They can’t find anything wrong. They want to keep her overnight for observation.”

“so that’s good right?” he wrote back. “like they have to have ruled out the worst things right?” 

A few minutes passed before he received another message: “Let’s just say she’s not the ideal patient.” Then, “I’ll be out soon. She won’t want me to stay regardless.”

“take your time,” he wrote back. 

At least it wasn’t a heart attack, he thought as he tucked his phone away. A week’s worth of weariness hit him full force then as he slid down in the chair, a sudden weight crushing him back against the wall. He knew that another coffee would probably help, but the effort required to walk over to the Keurig stand was daunting. Even bending over to retrieve the cold coffee resting beneath his chair was a bridge too far. 

Sonny gave himself permission to instead lean his head back against the wall, just for a minute. Permission to close his dry eyes and give them a gentle reprieve from this never-ending day. Just a few minutes. 

Just until his phone buzzed in his pocket. 

Just a few more minutes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❤ Happy birthday to ash! ❤

**Saturday, May 28th, 2016 - 12:38 AM**

Sonny shot to attention in his seat, stammering out the tail end of an apology. His father had been shaking his shoulder, yelling about the bikes left out on the lawn again. As Sonny’s field of vision faded into focus, he realized that he was still in the ER waiting room, and those bikes had long retired to his father’s shed all veiled in rust and cobwebs. It was Rafael standing over him now, withdrawing his palm from Sonny’s shoulder, his paisley tie loosened and cream sleeves rolled to the elbows. He looked exhausted. 

“Hey,” Sonny croaked out, his mouth gone dry from the nap.

“Ah, we found the lost puppy,” Rafael’s mother said, emerging at his side and looking less like a recent hospital patient than Sonny would have imagined her. The only true tell was the thick white bracelet at her wrist where gold bangles had hung when they first met. 

Rafael tapped his mother’s forearm and corrected: “Sonny.”

“Right. Sonny,” she said, raising her brows. “Of course, how could I forget?”

Sonny frantically rubbed the sleep from his eyes, now exponentially more embarrassed to have been caught in this state. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep.” He glanced at his watch. It was closing in on 1, and he could see he had missed plenty of notifications, likely messages from Rafael. “I thought I just closed my eyes for a sec.” He stood up from his seat and stretched wide, causing a cacophony of cracks and pops across his aching joints. “I thought...observation?” 

Rafael’s jaw tightened. “No, apparently the doctors can’t force you to stay, even when it’s necessary.”

“Who said it was necessary?” his mother asked. “And who was going to pay for all of it, hm?”

“The doctors. And me. In that order.” 

“I have things to do Rafi. Not all of us get leisurely weekends to spend lying in bed.” 

“No, not all of us do, mamí,” Rafael replied, his measured tone fraying at the edges. “Most of us don’t.”

“Besides, you heard the doctors,” she continued, unfazed, waving a hand. “It was just my nerves. And Lorena, she overreacted.”

Rafael let out a breathy, incredulous laugh. “I’m sorry, Lorena _overreacted_?”

“You know how she is—”

“So you’re saying she overreacted? To a woman complaining of chest pain?”

“Hey uh, Raf?” Sonny made a cautious attempt at derailing the imminent crescendo. “I’m ah, sorry to interrupt here, but what’s our plan?” His stomach felt like it might be in danger of consuming itself, and while logically he knew he should be more concerned about Mrs. Barba’s condition than his own appetite, he also assumed her vigor for debate was probably a good sign. “'Cause I’m sure that your mother would like to get some rest after all she’s been through,” he continued, shooting for his most _dutiful son _tone and flashing her an affable smile to seal the deal. He was nothing if not renowned for his ability to charm parents.

Rafael’s mother, however, was not so easily won. She gave Sonny a sidelong glance before turning back to her son. “Yes, Rafi, I _would_ like to get some rest after all the unnecessary dramatics.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. He retrieved his phone from his pocket. “So then we’ll drop my mother off at her home. And we’ll take a car there despite the fact that she’ll tell you three times that she only lives a few blocks from here and would gladly walk the distance at one in the morning, hospital bracelet and all.”

“_Rafael_." 

Rafael fully ignored her reproach, now preoccupied with his phone, and to Sonny’s surprise it was this brush-off that seemed to finally pierce her breezy exterior. She looked unsettled, her shoulders beginning to sag. She stood in stark contrast to the morning when Sonny had first encountered her, all bathed in her blaze of indignation and cutting a sharp path across Rafael's office. 

A throb of worry seized Sonny’s chest as he recalled the finer details of that morning, why she had been visiting: the Muñoz posters taped over the peephole of her door. A warning.

_A week later and she’s in the emergency room with chest pains and nerves, _ Sonny thought. He watched as she drew her own phone from the depths of her dark bag that hung from her shoulder, murmuring something about letting Lorena know that she was okay. _ What isn’t she telling us? _

“Mrs. Barba—” he began, just as Rafael looked up from his phone.

“Lucky for us, there’s someone right out on the street,” Rafael said, pointing to the small map on his screen. “Let’s go.” 

"Yes, let's." Rafael's mother linked her arm into the angle of his elbow and shot Sonny a look that told him she wouldn't have answered his questions anyway. 

What was it Rafael had said in his office that morning after she left? 

_She doesn't want to take it any further, what else can I do? _

**Saturday, May 28th, 2016 - 2:25 AM**

Sonny and Rafael rode the creaking elevator in relative silence, each clutching fat paper bags that housed their belated dinner: sandwiches from the 24-hour deli down the street from Rafael’s mother’s apartment. She’d allowed them to accompany her to the door of her unit at Sonny’s repeated suggestion, assuring them that nothing was wrong there. To her credit, everything about the place seemed normal, and so they left, bleary-eyed, walking the ledge between exhaustion and starvation and not entirely sure to which they’d succumb first. 

Rafael was lost in thought as they took the long hallway down to his apartment, and once inside he cut a familiar path to his kitchen to lay out his food. Sonny took a roundabout route, peeking into the bedroom and bathroom just to be safe, and taking stock of the view out of each window. The hospital visit, and his growing suspicion that Rafael’s mother was concealing information, had reinvigorated his own paranoia about the death threats. Whoever had sent them to Rafael, maybe they hadn’t stopped, not really. Maybe they were just biding their time.

Sonny wound his way back to the kitchen and set his paper bag on a clear stretch of counter. He turned to face Rafael, who had been idly flipping through old mail, and the sight calmed his nerves considerably.

“Hi,” Sonny said, softly.

“Hey.” 

Sonny took a tentative step towards him, and Rafael folded in against his chest, pressing his face into the curve of Sonny’s collar. They stood like that for a moment, all the evening’s tension unraveling from their bodies as their breaths began to slow, synchronize.

“She should have stayed,” Rafael said, though his voice was muffled. He took a step back from the embrace and smoothed a palm down the dark line of Sonny’s tie. “At the hospital. My mother. I— I can’t tell her what to do. I never could, really, but…"

“You did the best you could, Raf.”

“Did I?”

Sonny placed his palms firmly on Rafael’s shoulders. “Yeah. You did.”

He shook his head. “She fights me at every turn. I mean it’s always been that way, just…it’s different now.”

“You’re a good son. Besides, I think they put that in those parenting books. How to fundamentally disagree with every choice your kid makes.” The joke finally cracked something resembling a smile from Rafael. “And I mean, my ma’s the same way, you’ll see.” It took Sonny a second to realize what he’d implied, and he tried to stammer out a correction: “At some point. You know. Not like—”

Rafael silenced him with a kiss, unhurried and sweet, and Sonny's every scrambling thought dissipated into the crackling air. “Thank you,” Rafael said as he broke away. “For tonight.”

It took a beat for Sonny to find his own voice again. “What, for snoozing in a waiting room? Nah, it was nothing.” 

Rafael leaned in, murmuring between kisses, “If you weren’t there, I might have been admitted myself.” 

Sonny flushed with pride. Rafael pressed himself impossibly closer and began to work at the knot of Sonny’s tie as Sonny brought his forehead to rest against Rafael’s. 

“I’ve been waiting all week for this," Sonny said. "I missed you.” His tie slid to the floor with a silky hiss and the sound sent a shiver down his spine. He broke away, leaning back to capture the whole of the moment, file the memory of it among that long list of instances where he wondered how he got so damn lucky. He began to fiddle with the loose knot of Rafael’s tie in turn, but an audible gurgle from his stomach stopped him short of actually removing it. “Okay, not that this isn’t like, exactly what I am here for—”

“Do tell.” Rafael dropped his arms and hooked them around Sonny’s hips, fingers teasing at the dip of his back.

“S’just…” He dipped his head again, sheepish. “I’m actually gonna die if I don’t eat something first.” 

Rafael chuckled. He loosened his grip, pressing a light kiss into the angle of Sonny’s jaw before breaking away to unpack their food. Sonny leaned back against a stretch of counter to watch Rafael move around the kitchen, utterly transfixed by the dimly lit vision of domesticity. It was a simple spectacle, Rafael fussing over plating their food, but Sonny loved the sight of it. 

He loved everything about it. 

His cheeks flushed hot at the profound realization inherent in that thought.

**Saturday, May 28th, 2016 - 3:54 AM**

The moonlight cast silver-blue shadows across Rafael’s bedroom, sharp angles illuminated across the plush bedspread pooling at the small of Rafael’s back. Sonny had kicked it off of himself ten minutes prior, thinking that the overwhelming heat of it was the reason why sleep had eluded him. All the right elements were there for dozing: bone deep exhaustion, Rafael’s rhythmic snore providing that comfortable level white noise he could usually drift off to, and a bed ten times as comfortable as his own, let alone the starched cots at the precinct.

But his mind was racing, and trying to pin down a single thought felt a little like those game shows where you stood in a tube with dollar bills flying around. The contestants always came out shell-shocked and empty-handed; tonight, so did he.

Sonny watched the shadows play on the ceiling for a while longer. He listened to the near-constant hum of traffic mixing with Rafael’s steady breath, and changed his own level of blanket coverage three more times before admitting defeat and slipping out of bed to find his discarded clothes.

In the kitchen, Sonny found the other half of his sandwich stowed away in the fridge, and he made quick work of it over the sink, not bothering with another plate. He glanced toward the bedroom a few times as he ate, hoping Rafael wasn’t awake to catch the likely unattractive display.

After he finished, Sonny checked the peephole, taking stock of the fish-eyed view of the surrounding hallway. Much to his comfort, it was devoid of both menacing strangers and strange deposits of old campaign posters. He crept across the apartment toward the big windows in Rafael’s dining area, the ones that led to the fire-escape. With how many times the window’s fixtures appeared to be painted over, Sonny often worried if it would actually open in a time of need. 

He peered out onto the darkened street below, then the bank of apartment windows across the way. A few units here and there still had lights on. He tried to catch a glimpse of the details of the occupants and their varied lives. It reminded him of watching Rear Window as a kid with his parents, how shifting shadows in the hallway had haunted him for weeks afterward. 

He watched a dark SUV take the street slow, appearing to stop in front of one of the other buildings for a moment before speeding off again. Probably a Lyft, he thought. Then again, no one seemed to have exited the car.

A few minutes passed quietly as Sonny thought over the night’s events, dissecting Rafael’s mother’s appearance and what she might have been hiding from them, wondering what kind of deal the DA was going to give to the Tin Spoon bouncer and what that sudden twist meant for an already complex case. Soon enough, another dark SUV followed the same trajectory as the first one had, creeping down the street until it slowed to a stop at the next apartment building over, pausing only for a moment before taking off with its tires catching a bit of squeal in the hasty exit. Sonny felt a dark tendril creeping up from the pit of his stomach. 

Was it the same SUV that he’d just seen? Was it circling the block?

He caught a few numbers from the tag, but beyond that, there hadn’t been any visible details that were distinct. In a city brimming with dark SUVs, who was he to say definitively at this hour if he’d seen the same one or a similar two? Maybe someone was lost? Realistically, at this hour, they were probably just drunk.

But a darker thought struck him: maybe they were casing the block. Maybe they were looking for Rafael's apartment. 

Sonny turned, craned to see the top of the street from the window, pressing his cheek against the cool glass to watch for the possibility that the same car would make a third round. His heart began to race as he squinted for any sign of it. 

He was watching the stoplight so intently that when he heard his name called from somewhere in the apartment, he jumped. His feet actually left the floor. He bonked his head against the glass and sent the blinds above him into a hissing jumble, and his knee smacked soundly against the window sill.

“Jesus Christ!” Sonny shouted as he turned to find Rafael leaning against the entry to the dining area, a mix of concern and shock playing across his sleep-swollen features. “Holy shit, Raf, you scared the hell out of me.” He rubbed at his throbbing knee.

“What are you doing?” Rafael asked, squinting at him.

Sonny looked back out the window for a second, half-expecting to see a black SUV parked at their curb, maybe someone looking up at their window as they spoke, but the street was empty. A streetlight across the way flickered. His ribs hurt from how hard his heart wracked against them.

“I was just, I thought…” He gestured out the window, struggling to find the words to explain. “I dunno. Couldn’t sleep.”

“So you’ve… taken up voyeurism?”

“Ha.”

Rafael gave him a small, sad smile. “Want to stop menacing the neighbors and come back to bed?”

Sonny gave a final glance to the window just in time to catch a set of tail lights flickering at the end of the street, making a left turn. What kind of car it was Sonny couldn’t say, but he knew that the mystery of it would haunt him for the rest of the night.

Back in the plush bed, Rafael settled a protective arm across Sonny’s bare chest, his head resting just over Sonny’s shoulder and tucked in the crook of his neck. Enviably, he fell right back to sleep, his steady snore once again filling the room with ambient sound. Sonny continued to stare at the shapes on the ceiling, now wondering if each shift in shadow was a car drifting down the street, maybe stopping in front of the building. He tried to listen for the metallic scrape of car doors, but to hear anything that distant above Rafael’s breathy snore was a futile effort. 

Sonny reached for his phone on the nightstand and found his notebook beside it, grabbing it too. He flipped carefully through the pages, barely legible in the low lighting, all those quick notes jotted down creating a reverse chronology of his weeks. He stopped at a recent page he’d forgotten ever writing. He used the dim light of his phone’s screen to illuminate the page:

_0647582 / 2016 - State v. Treuth _

_Melinda Clark _

That overnight shift he’d spent sifting through court calendars seemed distant in memory, and he realized he’d jotted this information down only hours before the Tin Spoon had eaten up all of the squad’s resources. He had forgotten to ever follow up on the court clerk who had sent him the calendars, or the Treymont Treuth case and what precinct might have handled it. The case was a significant one, and it had overlapped many of the dates Rafael was receiving threats.

He closed the notebook and switched over to his phone, typing “Treymont Treuth” into his search bar as best he could with a single thumb. It wouldn’t be as efficient as talking to a court clerk, but he figured he might get lucky. 

The first search results were all articles about the recent sentencing, how Treuth had the book thrown at him and then some. Life without parole. Heavy sentence, but not undeserved. There were articles citing rumors that Treymont would appeal the sentencing. The Times seemed to have an anonymous source “close to the defendant” who thought that Treuth might be ready to offer up some valuable names in exchange for leniency. Sonny chuckled to himself. After the whole Tin Spoon write-up earlier that week, Sonny was pretty tired of all these enlightened anonymous sources who loved to talk to journalists.

Sonny scrolled through the results, looking for news articles earlier in the year, then added “2015” to his search terms, trying to narrow down when Treymont had actually been caught. Finally, Sonny caught a break with a December headline: “Notorious drug dealer linked to St. Francis homicide case in stable condition.”

He clicked the link and scrolled through the article, skimming sentences looking for any mention of who caught the guy.

_Shots fired behind a church... _

_... 27 year old Alfonso Madero found dead at the scene... _

_...Treymont led responding officers on a foot chase… _

_...punctured his abdomen on a chain-link fence… _

_...critical condition... _

_...Sergeant Kevin Donlan credited his army medic background for his quick stabilization at the scene… _

Rafael shuddered in his sleep, and the fine hairs on the back of Sonny’s neck prickled.

Sergeant Donlan.

Fuck.

He was one of the officers involved in the Terrence Reynolds shooting, one of the two who received the heaviest charges—not that it had amounted to much in the end.

Sonny stroked his free hand idly down the line of Rafael’s spine as he read the paragraph where a perfunctory mention of Donlan’s involvement in the Reynolds case was bookended by praise from his captain highlighting his meritorious efforts in the field.

Donlan’s involvement in Treuth’s case didn’t mean anything definitively, sure, but Sonny knew he should have trusted his hunch that one of these guys was likely skulking around the courthouse on the days that Rafael received his text message threats. Bile stung at the back of his throat as he recalled what truths he knew of Donlan from the rare instances they’d worked together. 

He thought of Donlan shouting at Rollins, slurring his words in light of his indictment, wondering aloud at what deal they’d all struck to avoid heavy charges. He thought of Donlan flinching behind his taser at the mouth of a wide cave as their apparent _Glasgowman_ ambled out.

** _“seems like a long walk alone from ur office”_ **

A weak jawline. A sloppy drunk. A restless trigger finger.

** _“seems like its good info 2 have. lucky me.”_ **

Sergeant Kevin Fucking Donlan. Of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your feedback and support ❤❤
> 
> Fun fact, if this chapter had a soundtrack, it would be [Phoebe Bridgers - Friday I'm In Love](https://youtu.be/I5IHmwn6aGE?t=2)
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ohlittleowl).


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this update finds y'all well and healthy and safe! I truly hope to have a little more consistency with posting in the near future, but if nothing else, I promise you that there is a full outline with an ending and I have every intention of getting there :)
> 
> As always, thank you for your kind words and support along the way, it has truly meant the world to me, and I appreciate it more than you know ❤❤

**Sunday, May 29th, 2016 - 4:55 PM**

What had sounded like a distant, muffled whine from the second floor landing became a distinctly shrill howl by the fifth flight of stairs. Sonny realized, as he approached Amanda’s door, that the sound was Jesse. He slowed just short of the threshold, wondering if his only vaguely-anticipated presence would be entirely welcome at this juncture. He shifted the plastic bags he held to one hand and gave a tentative knock with the other, then winced as the screeching continued undeterred.

Amanda answered the door in a pair of glasses, her hair piled messily atop her head, and a red-faced Jesse wailing against her shoulder. She looked genuinely surprised at first before skepticism won out. 

“You were serious?” Amanda rubbed at Jesse’s back as she squirmed.

“Yeah, hello to you too.” He lifted the bags he’d brought. “Can I come in?”

She took a step back to let him inside, and he headed toward the kitchen to deposit the bags on the counter.

“You don’t have to, really,” Amanda said. “She’s been a mess today. _ I _ don’t even wanna be here.”

“I can tell,” Sonny said as he pulled out jars and cans and lined them neatly on the counter. “Jesse, you sure got a lot to say today, huh?” He left the groceries half-sorted and reached out to Amanda. “Need a break? Want me to give it a whirl?”

Amanda looked like she wanted to challenge the offer, but maybe exhaustion won out, because she handed Jesse over easily. Jesse writhed against him, her sobs hot and wet against his shoulder.

“Oof, I know kiddo. I get it. But look, at least you didn’t have to carry all that stuff up five entire flights, am I right?” He took the perimeter of the apartment in bouncing steps as Amanda took stock of what he’d brought, examining labels. “She teething?”

“She sure is. Trying to get them all done at once or something. No pain, no gain, I guess.”

“Ah, so she _ does _ take after her ma.”

Amanda made a face. “So what brings you out here on a free Sunday afternoon? Isn’t that like, prime Carisi family bonding time?”

“They don’t know it’s a free afternoon.”

“Wow, playing hooky. I’m honored.” She lifted a small tin from the grocery bag and wrinkled her nose, “Anchovies? Really?”

“Trust me, it makes the recipe,” he replied. “And hey, someone’s gotta come over and make sure your stove still works every once in a while.”

“Funny.”

He shifted Jesse to his other shoulder, feeling the air hit cold where she’d drooled on his shirt in her ferver. Truthfully, there was a reason for his visit; he just couldn’t wrap his mind around it yet. It wasn’t something you announced over the quieting whines of an ornery infant.

Jesse’s howls had begun to slow with exhaustion. They became half-hearted, like she was struggling to keep up the effort just to be heard. She was Amanda’s kid alright.

“You know,” Amanda said, “it’s taking an awful lot of restraint right now for me to not be entirely offended. I’ve been walking that same circle with my daughter for about three hours now and suddenly she’s comforted by it.”

“Teresa always said it’s ‘cause the babies like the view from up here,” he said, apologetic. “I got a lotta practice with Mia back in the day. Teresa’s daughter. She was real colicky. Always crying, that kid. Teresa had to move back in with my parents when Mia was only a couple of months old. Said her husband couldn’t deal with the racket. More like he couldn’t hack it as a dad.” Sonny slowed his pace at her mantle to admire the framed picture he’d taken of the two of them on a blustery afternoon. For all the shit she’d given him about his camera that day, and his abundant use of the term “magic hour,” here was his photo, front and center.

Amanda gave a knowing snort. “Figures.”

“I have a lot of experience walking in circles with screaming babies thanks to that kid,” Sonny mused.

“Should put that on your dating profile.”

He laughed, a stilted sound as his stomach lurched. “I’ll get right on that. So, how have you been?”

“Aside from being slowly deafened?”

“Aside from that.”

“Oh you know…” she scrunched her face as though in thought. “Nope, that’s about it. Work, walking in circles with a screaming baby, lots of excitement over here. How about you?”

Excitement barely scratched the surface of it all for him. Crisis of faith and identity, tracking death threats against his— it suddenly occurred to him that he’d never considered how the word boyfriend sounded too juvenile a descriptor for Rafael, and yet _ partner _was too much like the person you shared bodega coffee with on a stake-out. 

“Sonny?”

He snapped back to the moment. “It’s been a tough couple of weeks, to be honest.” With Jesse almost entirely quieted, he circled back toward Amanda to delicately trade her back to her mother. “A lot on my plate, that’s all.”

“Seems like it. Hey, let me see if I can lay her down for a bit now that you worked your tall-guy magic.”

In her absence, Sonny surveyed the ingredients he’d brought for an easy puttanesca: olives, garlic, canned tomatoes, linguini, and the anchovies in their small tin. Sonny washed his hands, then dug through her kitchen drawers for all the things he’d need and lined them neatly on the counter. He filled a pot with water, salted it, and set it to boil, then arranged a small cutting board on her island counter. Sonny needed to keep his hands busy while he talked, or else he’d never get the words out. 

“I actually— I wanted to talk to you about something,” Sonny called out as Amanda emerged from the bedroom.

“Oh yeah?”

He cracked the garlic bulb, plucking out fat cloves and peeling off their brittle skins. “Yeah. It’s kinda personal. Work stuff. Well, not really work stuff but—I wanted to tell you first.”

“Shit, Sonny, are you leaving?”

“What? No, I’m not leaving.”

She took a seat at the counter across from him as he minced the garlic, propping her chin over her elbows. “Because this sounds serious.”

“It is. I mean it’s—okay, look. So Liv is getting back tomorrow, right?” She nodded along. “And I’m going to have to, well. Disclose. To her. A conflict—a relationship.”

Amanda looked genuinely puzzled. “Wait, so you’re dating someone at the precinct?”

He couldn’t look at her, and so he kept mincing the garlic finer and finer as he weighed the words in his head. How much groundwork did he need to lay? He opted for the simplest explanation: “Rafael.” 

She took a beat before clarifying: “You mean Barba?”

The garlic on the plastic board was nearly paste now, and so he had to stop. “Yup.”

“Huh. Wow. How long?” Her tone was indecipherable, and his stomach dropped. 

He turned his back to her to pour the boxed linguini into the bubbling water. “Not long.” When he turned back to Amanda, he wasn’t sure what expression he’d expected, but fond amusement wasn’t it. “What?”

She shook her head. “Dodds, he used to get so frustrated with you. I don’t think you ever knew about that.”

“What do you mean?” It was definitely not the response he’d expected. The reminder of Dodds, of thoughts and opinions the man once held and shared, it pressed sharp against his ribs. 

“All the time you spent over at the DA’s office. He always thought you were busy politicking. You know, polishing Barba’s shoes, angling for a job, I guess that’s the kind of stuff Dodds was used to. Little did he know…” she trailed off in a sing-song tone.

“Alright, come on. It wasn’t like that. It’s _ not _ like that.”

“Okay, okay.” She tilted her head. “I mean, wow. I had no idea. Seriously. Barba.”

Sonny flicked his brow as he ran the can-opener along the rim of the tomato can. “Mhm.”

“Talk about a conflict of interest.”

“Right.”

They were quiet then, Sonny tending to the pan of fragrant garlic as Amanda twirled the jar of olives around on the countertop. He’d expected to have to explain more, maybe, or maybe he’d expected a different reaction, but it all felt unfinished. Unsettled.

He turned back to say something just as she began, “I am glad you told me, Sonny. First, I mean. Or, at all, really.” She stared at the olive jar in her hands as she spoke, her voice gone soft.

“I didn’t want…it was important to me that—”

“Nah, I know,” she said briskly. Amanda was always quick to curtail the conversations that edged on sentimental. “I get it. So, anyway, what are you making?”

“Pasta puttanesca,” he said, with all the panache his heritage could afford him.

“Sounds fancy.”

He chuckled. “Not really. It’s what my dad always made when my ma was out late. His signature dish.”

“Out late?” she asked, raising a brow.

“Church groups,” he replied over the sizzle of ingredients he added to the pan. “Nothing crazy. Nah, my dad is a good cook, he just doesn’t like to do it. It’s just another chore to him.”

“Your dad’s got the right idea,” she quipped. “Actually, I think my mom was the same way really. She makes a couple damn good things. I think maybe if she wasn’t stuck raising a couple of kids on her own…I dunno, maybe it would have been different.” 

He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he didn’t, and wound up cooking the rest of the meal in a sort of tense silence. Every time he looked over to her she was considering something intently: her phone, a pile of unopened mail, the ingredients on a jar. Once he began to plate the meal, she seemed to perk up a bit, but he couldn’t help feeling like he’d struck some invisible nerve, one he couldn’t begin to unravel.

After they’d eaten their meal and Jesse had been fed and sufficiently played with, they popped open cold bottles of cheap beer. They made it two deep and halfway through the second episode of Family Feud on the couch before Amanda’s shoulders began to sag comfortably.

“You know, I’m sorry I was such a bitch earlier,” she said after a short swig of her drink.

“Which time?” Sonny asked, instinctively ducking away from the playful shove she aimed at his shoulder.

“This week, I don’t know, at DaPonte’s building when I had that phone call, _ family stuff. _ It was my mom.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Same old. Meddling like usual.” 

“Is she coming up to see her granddaughter?”

“Next month,” Amanda replied, then shook her head as she leaned forward to adjust the baby monitor on the coffee table, the ghostly image of Jesse illuminated on its screen.

“Well that’s nice at least.”

“No, it’s what she says every month. _Next month, Amanda._ _I’m buying a train ticket with my next paycheck and I just can’t wait to see my little grandbaby_. God, I hate being placated.”

“Oh.” He clicked his tongue. “Sorry.”

“So, yeah, next month for sure. Anyway, she was calling about Kim.” Amanda let out a deep sigh and leaned forward to set her beer on the coffee table beside the monitor. Mentions of her younger sister Kim were rarely happy anecdotes, less so when her name was paired with their mother.

“What about Kim?”

“Well she’s still in jail,” Amanda said matter-of-factly. She stood from her seat and headed towards her bedroom, returning with a worn envelope in hand. She dropped it unceremoniously into Sonny’s lap. 

“She sent you a letter?”

“Go on, take a look,” Amanda said. She grabbed her beer, watching him expectantly.

He unfolded the letter from its envelope and skimmed the contents, all thick bubbly lettering and rife with misspellings.

“She’s up for parole in 6 months,” Amanda said. “Less now, actually. Thinks she’s got a good chance. Wants to stay here with me if she gets out. She’s changed, ‘cause of course she has, found Jesus, whatever. Wants to know her niece. Wants to live a good, clean life, just like me.”

Sonny remembered the few faded letters Bella kept from Tommy when he was serving his own sentence. He’d tried to use his big-brother status to encourage her to maybe not wait on the promises of a guy who gave up his chance at college for something as dumb as dealing pot, and now they were practically married. Hell, credit where it was due, Tommy straightened himself out better than Sonny could have ever anticipated. 

“I dunno, you think maybe this all set her straight?” Sonny asked as he folded the letter neatly back into place.

“Really? You, a cop, think that’s all it would take?”

“Okay, I get it. I do. So then what, you’re not gonna let her stay here right?”

“My inclination is no, but…” She exhaled as she flopped back onto the couch and leaned into that well-worn impression of her mother: “_ She’s your baby sister, Amanda, for God’s sake _.”

“Fair. Sure. But you gotta do what’s right for your baby daughter, first.”

“That’s just it. Jesse comes first in my life, and I don’t know that I want to subject her to… all that goes along with Kim.” She rubbed a palm down her cheek. “At least I got a couple months to figure it all out.”

They watched the final moments of Family Feud as the score tallied on the screen, amounting to a big win for the Walsh family. It was a strange juxtaposition, a conversation of jailed sisters and absent mothers, and the exuberant family all dancing around the screen and clutching each other in manic, bouncing hugs.

“So you and Barba, huh,” she mused.

His face felt flush, he hoped from the beer. “Yep.”

“I mean I always thought you… I just never thought that he—”

“_Thanks._” 

“I’m kidding.”

He turned to face her. “No, wait, you always thought that I what?”

She grinned. “That you worshiped the guy.”

“And you never thought that he…?”

She chewed on the question for a moment. “Noticed?” 

He snorted. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

She laughed. “Seriously though, so you were dating or whatever when he went into protective cover, right? ‘Cause I remember when we picked up Heredio, I hadn’t ever seen you so fired up about an arrest… man, you know this revelation puts a lot of things into perspective.”

“The guy’s scum,” he said, his voice going gruff. “Heredio. Taking chump change to do someone’s dirty work.”

“Cheers to that.” She clinked her bottle against his. “At least he’s Rikers scum now.”

“Do you ever wonder who paid him off, though?” Sonny asked, sitting upright in his seat. “The coward behind it all?”

“Who, Heredio? Didn’t One-P-P close the case?”

“Only because the trail went cold. Heredio never gave up his employer.”

“Huh. Well I imagine you make a lot of enemies from Barba’s side of the bench. And, you know, being a smartass like he is.” 

“Okay, sure, but…” He trailed off, bit his lower lip in thought. 

“But that bothers you,” Amanda said, almost an apology.

Sonny nodded. “And, okay, between you and me… I did some digging.”

“Of course you did. What, you figured it out?”

“No. No… but I’ve got a hunch.”

She stood up once more from the couch. “Well I’m gonna need another drink in order to fully commit to a conspiracy theory. You want another?”

“Sure.”

She brought two freshly opened bottles back from the fridge and set them on the coffee table. “Alright, so let’s hear it.”

Sonny laid out his case against Kevin Donlan so far: how the threats had started right after the Terrance Reynolds case, and how Donlan had faced some of the heaviest charges in that trial. How they’d both been party to the guy bad-mouthing Barba after a couple of drinks during the trial. 

He pulled up the news article he’d saved on his phone at Barba’s apartment, showing how Donlan had been a key player in a high-profile case around the time the threats. How he’d essentially saved some big drug dealer, Treymont Treuth, from bleeding out in an alley and was likely to have been testifying in the courthouse at the same time that the threatening texts to Barba became personal and pointed. 

“If we can just place him at the courthouse on the same days that Barba’s getting the texts about someone skulking around his office—”

“But this is all circumstantial,” Amanda chided. “Really circumstantial. I mean the guy’s an asshole, sure, and okay, he probably wouldn’t have _ minded _if Barba tripped down the courthouse stairs after the indictment. But do you really think he was dumb enough to send threats to a prosecutor while he’s hanging around the courthouse? While he’s involved in a case? And especially after all the charges against him were dropped in the Reynolds case?”

Sonny deflated. He’d been trying to quiet the same voice in his own mind as he collected evidence, the one that told him that none of this proved anything. “I know, I know. You’re right. It’s just… I can’t shake the feeling that...” He shook his head. “That it _ was _one of those cops who shot Reynolds. That they were involved in this. It’s too convenient, Rafael getting a bunch of threats right after he nails a couple trigger-happy cops in court. And Donlan, he felt especially persecuted, right? A persecution complex can go a hell of a long way towards setting up a motive.”

“I mean, that’s fair.” 

Sonny was reminded once more of the image of Donlan holding a taser at the dark mouth of a cave, his arms trembling under the weight, the fear of the unknown. It had been Sonny’s first year at Manhattan SVU, one of the first cases that really stuck with him, got under his skin.

“Plus,” he added, “you gotta admit, the guy’s kind of a coward.”

She laughed. “Hey, you know what? Let me poke around a little—”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Seriously, Sonny, I’ll be discreet. Come on, I won’t blow up your spot. Let me see if I can dig up anything less shaky.”

He sighed and began to pick at the label on his bottle. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her help; in fact, he’d been dying to lay it all out for her every step of the way. He was used to working cases with a partner, bouncing ideas off each other until something stuck. But as soon as she dedicated a minute of her time to this...project… it became a real thing. Complicated. And more importantly: out of his control.

“I’m only saying this because you usually have pretty good hunches,” she added sweetly, as though the compliment might convince him. “And… you’re right about Donlan. At least about the fact that he’s a wuss.”

“Look. This can’t get on anyone’s radar,” he said, relenting. “Alright? Not One-P-P’s, not the lieutenant’s, and _ definitely _not Rafael’s.” Sonny’s phone buzzed in his pocket at that exact moment, and he almost jumped out of his skin. “Jesus,” he muttered as he pulled it out.

“Heading to bed,” the text from Rafael read, and it was strange that such a simple text, an idle check-in, could make him feel so warm and anchored to the earth. Maybe that was in part thanks to the third beer, too. 

He typed back a response: “Can I call in a few?”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you actually get all dopey about… Barba,” Amanda said, leaning her head back against the cushion of the couch. “This is kind of weird, I gotta be honest.”

“I’m not getting dopey,” he said, willing his expression to be more neutral. 

“‘Cause you look dopey.”

“That’s just how I look,” he said, locking the phone. 

Another notification lit up the screen: “I’d like that.” His heart fluttered. Maybe he really did look dopey these days. Maybe it wasn’t the worst way to look.

“Anyway, it’s getting pretty late,” he said, slipping the phone back into his pocket.

Amanda scoffed. “It’s 8:30.”

“8:42,” he said, then stood up and stretched languidly. “And in case you missed it, I’ve got a lot going on tomorrow.”

“I know.” Amanda tucked her legs up beneath her on the couch. “Liv, you know, she’ll get it. It’ll be fine.”

“Hope so,” he replied, then shrugged. The lieutenant was an empathetic person, one of the best bosses he ever had. He couldn’t bear to entertain the thought that she wouldn’t understand.

“She will,” Amanda continued. “And hey, thanks for dinner. And, you know… well, just lock the door on your way out, will ya?”

Sonny chuckled. “You’re welcome.”

Out in the hallway, Sonny pulled up Rafael’s contact and placed the call, listening to the phone trill as he took the creaky narrow staircase in twos.

“Hi.” Rafael sounded sleepy, and Sonny was reminded of those ethereal moments Saturday morning, the contentment in waking together, slow and lazy.

“So 8:30 is bedtime, huh?”

“8:50,” Rafael corrected. “And I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

“Hey, how was your ma?”

“She’s fine. Aggressively fine. Won’t entertain conversations about any chest pains or hospital visits.”

Sonny pushed open the building door with a squeak, hit with an inviting blast of warm air outside. It was a pleasant peek at the idea of summer before the season truly settled over the city like a hot dishrag.

“I guess that’s good? I dunno. Your ma’s a tough nut to crack.”

“You’re telling me. So, how are you? How’s Rollins?”

“Tired. Half deaf. Rollins’ kid screamed my ear off for a while earlier. She’s been having a rough go of it with Jesse’s teething and all.”

“My condolences. So, look. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Sonny echoed.

“Are you… still…?” Rafael’s voice was suddenly tentative. “Okay? With everything? I’d understand—”

“It’s my first order of business,” Sonny said. “Telling Liv. Disclosing. That is, if you still want to…?”

There was a beat of silence, almost long enough to make Sonny worry. “It’s my second order,” Rafael said finally. “Coffee first.”

Sonny laughed. “Okay. That’s fair I guess.”

“Good.”

He idled under the corner street lamp for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of the nearby subway stops, the relative reliability of their schedules about as easy to intuit as tea leaves.

“Dinner plans?” Rafael asked. “Tomorrow, I mean?”

“I’m hoping it’s not eating a sandwich over a pile of paperwork.”

“Hm. Maybe something better will come up. Around 7… or maybe 7:30.” It was a familiar offer, one that Sonny instantly recognized as his own bad joke from a week ago.

“That sounds like an extremely specific maybe,” he replied, feeling buoyant as he crossed the street. 

“Sounds like it is. Goodnight, Sonny.”

“Night, Raf.” He slid the phone into his pocket and took a deep breath, exhaling slow, wanting to savor the anticipation welling in his sternum. The world seemed bigger in that moment, more vibrant around him as he walked the familiar street, passing the gentle glow of grated windows, the aimless chatter of folks lingering on their stoops. He’d probably feel different in the morning, but for now, he allowed himself to revel in unbridled optimism about the days ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ohlittleowl)!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: mentions of case-related suicide (including brief imagery)**
> 
> Thanks as always for putting up with my posting "schedule." I appreciate everyone who has left feedback thus far -- your kudos and comments are treasured. 
> 
> Un-beta'd, so apologies for whatever I missed.

**Monday, May 30, 2016 – 8:03 AM**

There was a box waiting for Sonny on his desk, edged in gold with crisp embossed lettering over lush floral illustrations. Its presence, propped neatly against his keyboard, dashed all hope of beating the lieutenant to the precinct that morning.

_ Calissons du Roy René, Aix-en-Provence _

Cellophane cutouts exposed the glossy triangles in the box: cookies, or maybe candy, he wasn’t sure. He glanced around to find that Rollins and Fin weren’t at their desks, but their own gifts appeared to be inspected already. For Rollins, various chocolate bars unlaced from a blood-red ribbon and spread across her desk. For Fin, a tall velvet bag by his monitor, conspicuously bottle-shaped, a cork just barely visible.

Sonny dropped his things onto his chair and bent to withdraw a file envelope from the locked drawer in his desk. _First order of business_, as he had said to Rafael the night before. While he had imagined that he would take a few minutes to gather his thoughts upon arriving, he now felt pressure mounting as the threat of idle small talk from colleagues or a pressing phone call loomed. These things stood to derail him entirely, or at least cause him to lose his nerve. He grabbed the gift box too, hoping that it might help him find an easy segue into a difficult conversation.

Benson didn’t notice his arrival to her office at first; her attention was entirely focused on sliding a photograph into a small frame. She marveled at her handiwork with an easy fondness he had never seen her wear, and while he couldn’t imagine anything muting out the tolls of their job—all the strange crime-scene memories that popped up when you least expected them—he figured a week being in love in a beautiful city, an ocean away from home, probably helped a little.

She turned to set the frame down on her desk and caught sight of him darkening the doorway. “Oh Carisi, I didn’t see you come in!”

“Bon-_jour_,” he tried, and she chuckled. 

She turned the picture to face Sonny, inviting him to come closer and see what she had framed. It was a nice shot, Benson and Tucker sharing a private smile in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

“I don’t know why, but I think this is my favorite shot of the whole trip,” she said as she righted the frame on her desk, giving it a prime spot amidst the pictures of Noah.

“It’s a good picture, lieu. You guys look good. And hey, thanks for these.” He held up the box in his hand. “Never had ‘em before.”

She nodded. “_Calissons_. I thought of you when I saw them in the shop—they had a whole display on their storied history. They’re French candies, but have their roots in medieval _Italia_.” Her gaze lingered on the box in his hands. “Was there... something else, Carisi?”

Sonny looked down and saw what she must have seen: the envelope tucked behind the box. “Ah. Yeah, lieu, actually there is.” He cut back across her office to shut the door.

“Is everything alright?”

“It is. I just have to, ah…” He leaned back against the closed door, unfastening the metal clip on the envelope. “Talk to you.”

She tilted her head. “Did something happen while I was gone?”

Sonny withdrew the few paper-clipped pages and, before allowing himself the time to gather the right words, dropped the packet onto the lieutenant’s desk. He turned away from her, facing the slatted blinds and the hints of the precinct beyond them.

It was silent enough to hear the paperclip ping against her desk. He listened as she ruffled through the pages, the impossible distillation of _everything_ into a few checkboxes and punctuated with a chicken-scratch signature. Sonny couldn’t bear to watch the scrutiny, and so he stared at the blinds until he could see motes of dust in the air.

“How long has this been going on?”

He winced at the question, because it meant his first answer would be a creative interpretation of the truth. “Not long.”

“Carisi?”

Sonny turned slowly to face her, and found that she had donned her glasses to read the documents that she now held in her hands. Her brow was furrowed; she looked serious, but she didn’t look _angry_, and that was really all he could have hoped for.

“See, I’m not out,” he said, the words tumbling at a clip. “Professionally, or, really, at all—and I wanted to be sure—it’s just the ethics—”

“Carisi.” She let the papers fall to her desk and removed her glasses carefully. “This isn’t an interrogation. I just need to... understand the situation. As your commanding officer. Okay?” It was a talent really, how quickly she could unravel a person’s defenses with a subtle shift in her inflection.

“After Dodds,” he said and sank back onto her couch, placing the gift box in his lap. “Right after the funeral.” It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. He and Rafael had agreed that, when disclosing, it wasn’t necessary to document the messy beginnings. Even the earlier text message threats, the ones that implied some sort of relationship between them, could be hand-waved if they ever came up.

“Hm.” She twirled the arm of her glasses between her thumb and forefinger. “I see.”

He began to pick at the gilding of the box in his lap as he spoke. “I wanted to—we wanted to tell you sooner. The timing, what with the funeral, and with your—with _my_—”

“I understand, Carisi. At least, I’d like to think that I do. Please, don’t think that I don’t get the… gravity of the situation. The position that something like this would put you in, on many levels. Professionally. Personally.”

He chuckled, and it came out as a shaky sound. “Yeah. Okay.”

She gathered his documentation back together, paper-clipped it, and slid the packet into its envelope. “I’m sure that he’s disclosing as well?”

“He’s meeting with the DA this morning.”

“Ah. A coordinated effort,” she said with a trace of amusement that faded quick. “He won’t be able to prosecute your cases.”

“I know.” Sonny’s knee began to bob. He knew the other shoe would have to drop at some point; better now than down the line when he would have gotten too comfortable to expect it.

“And I’ll have to take that into consideration at times. It might make for some… tough decisions around here.”

“That’s understandable.”

Benson steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “And… there could be an ethics investigation once something like this is filed. It depends on certain factors, and sometimes those factors are...political. I know you both. I trust that you would treat this situation with the necessary propriety, and that there wouldn’t be any... privileged treatment—”

“Of course, lieu.”

“But others might not see it that way. And any external investigation would be out of my hands.”

“Nah, I get that. I do.” Rafael had said something similar to him when they had first discussed the possibility of real disclosure, but truthfully, he had made it seem a lot less likely than Benson just had. Still, as Rafael had said then, they had done nothing worth worrying about.

“I appreciate your honesty, Carisi,” she said. “Especially about such a sensitive topic. It remains between… those involved. Unless you tell me otherwise.”

He raked a hand through his hair, hoping to quell the prickle at the backs of his eyes. Suddenly it was done and nothing was lost. He dropped his shoulders and his chest ached with tension. “Thanks, lieu. Really, thanks for understanding.”

“So.” She leaned forward on her desk, pressed her palm against an overstuffed file folder. “Rollins is set to debrief on this nightclub case in a few minutes. Is there anything else you need to talk about before we get to it?”

“Nope. That’s all I’ve got.” Sonny stood up, almost dropping the box of calissons to the floor in his hasty retreat. “Thanks lieu.”

He sped through the doorway before he could hear any response.

Rollins was busy pinning photographs to the corkboard when Sonny entered the conference area. She regarded him briefly with a nod before grabbing Douglas Hess’ mugshot from where it lay on the table. “Everything go alright?” she asked.

“Yeah.” It came out gruffer than he would have liked, and she seemed to pick up on that.

“Yeah?” She caught his eye for a moment, held his gaze, and he nodded. “Good. See? I told you.”

“Told him what?” Fin asked as he sauntered in with a steaming cup of coffee and claimed his usual seat at the middle of the oblong table.

“That the Mets were gonna choke last night,” Rollins replied, working a pin through the mugshot and into the board.

Fin clicked his tongue. “Who were they playing?”

“Dodgers,” Sonny said. He had left the tail end of the game on his television while getting ready for bed last night, and he owed Rollins a drink for the clever save. “Lost the tiebreaker, four-to-two.”

“Damn.”

“There’s plenty of baseball left this season, I’m not too worried about it. And to be fair, with tiebreakers you always kinda know that it’s gonna to go to the first team that scores.” The change of topic began to smooth out his lingering nerves, and maybe he owed Rollins more than one drink for that kindness.

“Morning, folks,” Benson said as she breezed in. All trace of her vacation fondness gone as she headed straight for the corkboard with her file in hand. “So, what have we got?”

Rollins tapped a knuckle against a driver’s license photograph of a gaunt young woman with frizzy brown hair. “Candace Gettings. May 19th, she was supposed to meet a Tinder date at a nightclub, Tin Spoon. She’s new to the city, moved here in February, never been to this club before but was testing out the dating scene. Her date never shows up, but she has a few drinks by herself while waiting.”

Rollins then moved to Hess’s mugshot, where his most defining features were his dark eyes, hung heavy with bags and shadowed by a thick, unkempt brow. “She said this guy, the bouncer, Douglas Hess, hit on her at the bar, made her uncomfortable. She tried to blow him off a few times, but he was pushy. Eventually he disappeared. Candace thought he left to go back on his shift at the entrance to the club. She tried to use the bathroom around 11:30, thinking she might call it a night after that, and said that Hess was waiting for her in the alcove just outside. She said he grabbed her, dragged her into the empty bathroom, and raped her.”

“I see that we got a DNA match on the rape kit, but…” Benson trailed off as she pulled a cd in its paper sleeve from the case file and held it up. “We have footage too?”

“Right,” Rollins continued. “So when CSU detailed the scene, they found a hidden camera mounted in the bathroom that had captured a month’s worth of criminal activity, including this assault. It caught Hess dead to rights on this and a few other assaults. But... it also caught evidence of what could be a larger operation being run out of this space.” 

“So we sent a copy of the footage over to Narcotics to see if they could ID any of the dealers on the tape,” Sonny said. 

Rollins pointed to the far corner of the board where she had pinned up a few still shots that TARU had captured and cleaned up for them. “But these guys, they’re not selling drugs. They show up frequently, always taking money from these same women, and sometimes the women leave with other men.”

Benson nodded, flipping pages in her file. “Hm, okay. And there were no other cameras in the building?”

“They searched the place but couldn’t find anything else inside,” Rollins said.

“Doesn’t mean there weren’t any,” Fin added over the lip of his paper cup. “Just that they’re gone now.” 

“True,” Sonny said, taking a step forward and leaning over the far end of the table. “They did find a few security cams looking over the back entrance. But those... they had way less saved footage than the bathroom camera. They’re the kind that reset their internal storage every 24 hours, and they weren't routed to anything external that we could find.”

“But actually, the bathroom camera is one the few things we got our perp to talk about,” Rollins said, turning back to the board. “Hess was quick to mention that the camera might belong to the owner of the club, Anthony DaPonte.” She pointed to DaPonte’s license photo, hung slightly askew. Pinned beside it was a newsprint photo of him, younger and with more hair, posing behind the club’s sprawling glass bar. “Now Hess, he didn’t have actual proof that it was DaPonte’s camera. He said it was a gut feeling, that DaPonte was ‘a creep,’ which, I guess it takes one to know one.”

“But we checked DaPonte’s records,” Fin said. “Guy was pretty clean. Minor tax stuff and a few traffic violations, that’s it.”

Benson studied the board for a moment. “And now DaPonte is dead.”

Rollins gave a grim nod. “Found him in his bathtub. We’d called him in on the 23rd to talk about Hess and the assault, but he never showed up.”

“His lawyer did, though,” Sonny cut in. “I mean, Buchanan was here bright and early, convinced that NYPD was trying to pull a fast one on this guy. Now that doesn’t really seem like something you do before you end it all, does it? Hire a lawyer?”

“Maybe he realized Buchanan can’t work miracles,” Fin said.

“Or maybe he just had second thoughts, right?” Rollins added. “You saw his apartment, Carisi, what would you say it cost? A couple million? At least? Maybe he knew we were onto something and didn’t like the prospect of downsizing.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sonny said. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but something about the whole premise still seemed off to him.

“So we have what looks to be a significant trafficking operation running out of this location,” Benson said, changing tack. “Did Hess know anything about it?”

“He lawyered up quick and stopped having much to say about anything,” Rollins said. “Especially after DaPonte’s death. And, that’s not to say he was real chatty to begin with. Last we heard, his lawyer was busy trying to stall Barba into taking the weekend.”

“Actually, Barba says the DA took over the case,” Sonny said before his good sense kicked in. It was information that he had technically learned off the clock, though more importantly, it was information that no one else in the room seemed privy to. 

Rollins shot him a questioning look. “I guess I hadn’t heard the latest then,” she said. 

In earlier days, a moment like this may have put Sonny at the butt of some jokes about his loyalties and aspirations. It would not have been a concern to Sonny at all had he not just been in the lieutenant’s office promising propriety above all else.

“Oh?” Benson turned to face him, a brow raised. “Why is that?”

“Barba… said the DA took a special interest. That’s all he knew about it.”

“I see,” she replied, and he would have bet his paycheck that she detected his error in judgement. “And so what about the other women on the tape?” Benson asked, turning back to Rollins. “We can see that they’re frequent visitors to this club, but nobody recognizes them? Employees? Patrons?”

“We’ve talked to cooperative employees, bartenders mostly, but we haven’t made any IDs yet. Nobody knows them.”

“And we’ve been going through the receipts for those nights too,” Sonny said. “But these bartenders all stressed that they have a lot of clientele who like to pay cash.”

“Buncha high rollers who value their privacy,” Fin added. “Figures.”

“You’re right, that’s not surprising,” Benson said. She pulled a sheet out from her file. “Well, Narcotics sent us the names of three known dealers that they identified from the tape.” She slid the page across the table to Fin, who in turn began to study it. “None of them are major players, but all of them have been on the radar for some time. Narcotics said they’ll stand down if we need these guys as witnesses, so maybe we start there. See if any of them are willing to make a deal on information about these women or their handlers.”

“I’ll pull up last-knowns,” Fin said, standing from his seat and making his way out of the room with the sheet.

“What, so now Narcotics is looping us back in? After we've been hounding them for names all week?” Sonny asked, indignant for all the hours he had spent playing phone tag with their department.

“Well we have them now, Carisi,” Benson replied, a gentle chiding. She caught sight of something out in the precinct that turned her momentary irritation into something more pronounced. “Barba. It’s good to see you,” she said, though her tone belied somewhat less cordial sentiments.

Sonny did a double take over his shoulder, startled to find that Rafael now stood in the entry to the conference space with his tan suit jacket tucked over one arm.

“Welcome back, Liv,” he said, almost asked, as though the greeting were a toe dipped in uncertain waters.

“A quick word, counselor? In my office?” Benson didn’t wait for his answer, instead dropping the case file onto the table and cutting a path to her office. Rafael dutifully followed her, and much to Sonny’s chagrin, spared him no reassuring glance.

The door to Benson’s office shut with a clunk, and Rollins gave a soft whistle. “I thought you said everything went okay this morning?”

“I thought it _did_,” Sonny said, entirely taken aback by the exchange he had just witnessed. “I mean, what, that can’t possibly be about…?” He trailed off. Maybe it was. Maybe things would have been different had he not pitched in that extra information. But he had to, right?

They stood in the tense quiet for a moment, Rollins paging through the file that Benson had left on the table, Sonny staring at the newsprint photo of DaPonte. The photo came from the retrospective article that had run the previous week, documenting the history of club's humble beginnings through its “tragic decline.” According to the article, Tin Spoon was originally more of a music venue, the kind of place you would go to see middling bands, at least as a pretense. Why they moved to DJs and dancing was never really explained in the article, but it must have been a good move for how well DaPonte had been living lately.

The reporter described a young Anthony DaPonte as an _idealistic entrepreneur_, and the descriptor really fit the early picture of him. His more-recent license photo did his sharp features no favors: his nose looked extremely flushed, stark against his complexion, and he was sporting more wrinkles than you would expect on a guy in his 40’s. Then again, Sonny couldn’t quite shake the first real image he had seen of DaPonte, the worst of them all, with his bloodied head lolling. 

Another detail occurred to Sonny then: the gun. They hadn’t even talked about how DaPonte’s gun had disappeared into the black hole of the Gun Trace Unit, and how if Sonny had been annoyed by Narcotic's response, he was downright furious at the way they'd blown him off repeatedly, assuring him that it wasn't relevant to his case.

But Fin’s voice drew him back from the precipice of that realization. 

“Guys, we got a problem.”

“What’s that?” Rollins asked as Fin set down an open laptop on the broad table, turning it around to face her. Sonny huddled in beside them to read the headline:

_Four people found fatally shot in Brooklyn apartment amid Memorial Day weekend violence_

“Those three dealers Narcotics IDed from the footage?” Fin gestured to the screen. “They’re all dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert DUN DUN sound*


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that everyone is safe and well ❤❤ Thanks as always for your feedback and support and patience as I muddle through! There are a few updates in the queue, so expect to hear a little more frequently from me, at least for a bit. 
> 
> Somewhat un-beta'd, so apologies for anything I've missed.

“Okay, so all three of our dealers were found dead in the same apartment,” Rollins said as they walked back through the precinct towards their desks. “What is this, some kind of a clean-up job?” 

“Sure looks that way,” Fin said. “The news is saying it was a disagreement over turf.”

“But we only had three dealers IDed, right?” Sonny chimed in. “So who’s the fourth guy with them?”

“Manny Fuentes,” Fin said. “I looked him up. He’s got a long history with BX-9. Could be a fellow associate of our dealers.”

“Or he could have been the trigger man,” Rollins offered.

“Not a very good one,” Fin replied. 

Sonny stopped at Rollins’ desk, leaning against the edge as she pulled up the article on her screen. He stole a glance toward the lieutenant’s office, but the door was still shut and the blinds had been drawn tight.

“Huh,” Rollins said. “Okay, so this article says that neighbors had been complaining about the apartment for months. Loud parties, people coming and going at all hours, late night gambling. We should probably check out the area, talk to the neighbors.”

“Maybe they’ve seen some of our girls from the club hanging around,” Sonny said. 

“Or their handlers,” Fin added. He typed a few words on his keyboard, then gestured at the screen. “Looks like the apartment is registered to some company. E & J Export Management, LLC.”

“Export management? You serious?” Rollins asked, incredulous.

“Dead serious,” Fin replied. “Any guesses on what exports they’re managing?”

A voice cut into their conversation: “Excuse me, Detective Tutuola?” One of the precinct officers approached Fin’s desk, flanked by a man and woman, a matching pair in their dull suits and solemn expressions. “They’re here to see you,” the officer said, leaving them standing by Fin’s desk, expectant.

“Agent Pierce, and this is Agent West,” the woman said, a brisk introduction as both produced badges. “We’re actually looking for Lieutenant Benson?”

“Yeah, sure,” Fin said as he stood, seeming to weigh his options for a beat. “Let me just… let her know you’re here. She’s in a meeting right now.”

He headed towards her office, and seemed surprised that both agents followed on swift on his heels. 

Sonny exchanged a look with Rollins as Fin knocked on the lieutenant’s door. “She’s barely been back an hour,” he said. “That can’t be good news.”

“Nope.”

They watched as Fin leaned into Benson’s office in an attempt to announce their guests, but the agents breezed right past him with little regard for formalities. Rafael exited the office just as quick, holding a small rectangular gift box of his own and looking flustered by the intrusion. He followed Fin back to his desk, stopping nearby to chat.

“They were certainly in a hurry,” Rafael said.

“Feds always are,” Fin replied as he took his seat once more. “Unless you need something from ‘em.” This drew a knowing chuckle from everyone gathered.

“Well, I’ve got to be in court in an hour,” Rafael said, checking his watch, then glancing back towards the lieutenant’s closed door, his shoulders sagging. “Someone tell her to send my jacket along once the agents vacate.”

“Let me walk you out, counselor?” Sonny said, standing from where he had perched, a quick movement that knocked over a small container of Rollins’ business cards, fanning them out across her desk. She shot him a pointed look, but mercifully let him off without further comment.

As Sonny and Rafael took the hallway together in silence, Sonny didn’t even quite know what to ask first—how had the DA taken the disclosure? Unless, what if Rafael hadn’t even disclosed yet? And, more pressingly, what was going on with the lieutenant?

No sooner had the elevator doors slid shut than Sonny blurted out: “What was that?”

“Hm?” Rafael was distracted by his Blackberry, checking his messages with one hand, his gift tucked under his other arm.

“With the lieutenant?” Sonny pressed.

“Oh. That. She gave me an earful about ethics. Propriety. It was only fair.”

“Fair? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Her and Tucker. The conflict of interest. The transfer. I can see how this development might look now, given that history.”

“This development? You mean…?” Something tightened in Sonny’s chest. Was Rafael really comparing their two disparate situations? More importantly, was _ she_? “Tucker was a suspect. In a major trafficking ring. She was dating a _ suspect_. That’s a little different, am I right?”

“You and I both know that Tucker was never a suspect to her,” Rafael said, his tone edged in exasperation. He shrugged and pocketed his phone. “Love is blind, and he was cleared in the end. I’d be naive to think she’ll ever see my side on that one. Even more so to think that the way it was handled won’t always color her view of things. I won’t apologize, but… neither will she. And who knows, maybe she’s not wrong to hold her ground.” 

The doors opened then, emptying them onto the ground floor of the building, blinding sunlight pouring through the wide windows all around them and casting the foot traffic in shades of morning gold. He took a step out and waited for Sonny to follow.

So, from his telling of it, Rafael’s conversation with the lieutenant had been diametrically opposed to the one Sonny had barely an hour before. It seemed like his small, hard-earned victory had been swiftly unraveled. “Okay, so what now?” he asked, lowering his voice as they passed by uniformed officers with cursory nods. 

“So I don’t prosecute your cases, and we don’t share privileged information. Easy enough, right? Going forward, I mean—she mentioned your DA comment. A few times.”

Sonny flushed. “I wasn’t thinking. It just came up.”

“Of course. Because sharing that information wouldn’t have been a problem before. But look, how are you holding up?” 

“Me?” The abrupt shift to concern caught Sonny off guard. He chose to hold the rest of his thoughts until they had breached the front doors of the building and made their way out into the humid heat, the final dregs of spring made unrecognizable by it. Rafael led them a few paces away from the main thoroughfare, into the shade of a nearby awning.

“I’m fine,” Sonny said finally, as they slowed to a stop. “Nah, actually I’m confused. All that ethics and propriety stuff, are you saying the lieutenant’s not… okay with this?”

Rafael let out a sigh. “No. What I’m saying is that… it wasn’t about you at all. If that’s any condolence.” He gave Sonny a rueful smile, and Sonny gleaned from it a small sense of relief.

“I mean, not really. But if you’re saying that everything’s okay, I guess I can live with it.” He scratched the back of his neck and looked away, watched a cab execute a risky lane change that resulted in a torrent of car horns. “How did it go for you, anyway? With the DA?”

“With the election looming, all the office cares about is optics, no surprises there. It’s best that the paperwork is filed, but as long as we’re not making headlines he’s got more pressing priorities. Are you sure you’re…okay?”

Sonny stared hard at some fading point in the distance, failing to find any one answer that covered the whole of it. Even before the whiplash of their elevator ride, he had lost that momentary respite he found in the lieutenant’s office as she slid the disclosure forms back into their envelope. Turning the moment over in his mind at his desk as he tucked away his Parisian gift, it had occurred to him that the disclosure was not the last time he would be offering up that part of himself for scrutiny. Not by far. That maybe it would get easier, but there would never really be a concrete end to it; there would always be some cousin, some colleague, who didn’t know.

He couldn’t name the feelings, those multi-faceted things, not here among the pedestrian traffic, the idle officers gathered at a nearby hot-dog vendor shooting the breeze, the promise of work waiting for him on back his desk. Instead, Sonny changed course: “What’d she get you, anyway?” He gestured toward the box Rafael had tucked beneath his arm, and Rafael pulled it out for inspection. It was kitschy, adorned with crimson illustrations of architectural landmarks.

_Les Chuques du Nord_.

“She said they’re coffee flavored,” Rafael said. “Said there was a story to it, but she… never quite made it back to that part.”

Sonny chuckled. “Mine had a story too. Wait, so you’re telling me you forgot your jacket but managed to save the snacks?”

Rafael appeared taken aback for a second—a personal victory in Sonny’s book—but he recovered quickly. “Yes. Well. At least you won’t steal a bite of my jacket when you deliver it to the office.”

“Wow. That’s an awful lot of assumptions there, counselor,” Sonny said, feigning affront. 

Rafael raised a brow. “Were we not grabbing dinner this evening?”

“Yeah? I mean, hopefully?” He raked a hand through his hair. “Who knows what’s going on up there now with the agents paying us a visit.”

“Well I’d say it’s not a _wild_ assumption to think that you can bring my jacket with you when you head over to my office, right? Around 7?” 

Sonny laughed. It was artful, really, how rarely Rafael had to cede his ground. “You’re kind of a pain sometimes.”

Rafael smiled as though he treasured the compliment, then shifted his weight and spoke quietly. “Sonny, really, are you sure that you’re alright? You evaded the question twice, I have to ask.”

Sonny chafed against the notion, how it felt akin to pity. He stood straighter, waved a dismissive hand. “I am. Really, okay? It was fine. I’m fine. And to be fair, Rollins knows too, I told her last night. I didn’t want her to find out from… well, someone who wasn’t me. And I mean, Bella knows too if we’re being honest.”

Rafael narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I’d hope that we're being honest. Bella, your sister?”

“Yeah, last week, I should have mentioned that. It just kinda came up, us talking about being happy and all. I swore her to secrecy, and she’s good for that, despite all appearances otherwise. And I’m gonna tell the rest of ‘em too—”

Rafael put up a hand. “I get that. I do. Just… take your time. Okay? Do things at your own pace. There’s no pressure.”

“Nah, I am. I got it, don’t worry.”

A beat passed, and Rafael appeared thoughtful, as though he had something more to say but couldn’t find the words. Finally, he settled on a rather stilted question: “You were... talking about being happy? With your sister?”

“Yeah,” Sonny said, looking to his feet, entirely unable to expound on that particular sentiment. “And hey, for the record, Bella said you were outta my league.” He glanced up to see how the humor landed, but found that Rafael was now leaning, angling to catch sight of something beyond Sonny and their small patch of shade. Sonny turned to see the agents crossing the plaza together, each burdened with a file box as they headed toward an idling SUV stationed at the curb.

“Wonder what that’s all about,” Rafael murmured.

“I ought to go find out.”

“Yes, good thought. Keep in touch, then,” Rafael said. He reached out to squeeze Sonny’s arm, a brief gesture. “And bring the jacket.”

“I will. I’ll trade it for some of your coffee things,” he said as Rafael turned to leave.

“Good luck with that,” Rafael called over his shoulder.

Back in the precinct, Sonny found that the lieutenant’s door was closed once more. Rollins and Fin were chatting quietly, almost conspiratorial, leaning in close and murmuring across the corners of their desks.

“So what happened with those agents?” Sonny asked, the sound of his voice jarring them from their conversation. “I saw them outside, taking file boxes.”

Rollins and Fin exchanged a glance, some entire debate carried out without words.

“We don’t know yet,” Fin said.

“They grabbed all the nightclub files,” Rollins added. “Liv didn’t take it well. She’s making some calls.”

The lieutenant’s door opened, and she emerged from her office looking stunned. “I just got off the phone with the Deputy Chief,” she said as she strode over to their desks. “There’s not much we can do. FBI pulled rank. It’s out of our hands.”

“What’s out of our hands?” Sonny asked as he reclaimed his spot at the corner of Rollins’ desk.

“Tin Spoon. All of it. It’s _ not our case anymore_,” Benson said, likely repeated from her last phone call.

A sudden sense of déjà vu washed over Sonny, a cold spark that ran down his spine. 

The suicide. The dealers’ deaths. The DA taking Hess’ case, and days later the FBI taking over the broader investigation. It felt like someone’s concerted effort to circle the wagons. He’d seen it before. Rafael had said as much at Forlini’s: _ the narrative is being spun. _

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Sonny said, invigorated by his own growing unease. “I mean, there’s gotta be something bigger at play for the FBI to pull rank like this, right?”

“Something, or some_ one_,” Rollins added.

“I let Dodds know that we have a vested interest,” Benson said, deflated. “That we’d like to be kept in the loop. That we want to find those girls on the tape. He’s going to pass it up the chain of command, but…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“But don’t hold your breath,” Fin said, finishing the sentence that she wouldn’t.

Benson gave a dark chuckle. “I’m going to make a few more phone calls, see if I can’t trade on any favors to get a better sense of what’s going on. In the meantime, you will need to send all of your case notes to the Bureau. We’ve been ordered to purge anything related to the investigation.”

They all murmured their agreement, and Benson took her leave. Once the door had shut behind her, Sonny blurted out the thought he was entirely consumed by.

“What the hell did we just stumble into?”

From the expressions on their faces, Fin and Rollins had been thinking it too. 

\--

The rest of the day passed by in a haze of activity, of sending files and shredding documentation, all underscored by murmurs about the unknowns. The lieutenant’s phone calls had not amounted to much, and the case was still resolutely not in their purview. By late afternoon the mood in the precinct thoroughly reflected the tough blow. 

Sonny had let at least three cups of coffee go cold over the course of the day as he purged his notes, then followed up on a few threads from older cases and closed out some old files. He was busy microwaving the third mug when Rollins slid into the break room with a document envelope in hand and a curious expression. She took a seat at the table and beckoned him to join her.

“What’s that,” he asked. “You forget to send something over?”

“No,” she replied, then glanced over her shoulder. “This is—I wanted to show you something. C’mere.”

He left his mug with its final 7 seconds in the microwave and plopped in the chair across the table from her. “What’s up?” 

She glanced over her shoulder again, and her apparent attempt at secrecy began to make him uneasy. “Okay,” she began, her voice quiet. “So, remember last night?”

He squinted. “Uh, generally speaking, yes?”

She raised a brow. “Remember when I offered to take a stab at the… _problem_ you’ve been looking into?”

“Huh?”

“Donlan,” she said, sliding the envelope across the table to him.

The whirlwind of the Tin Spoon case had taken over all free real estate in his mind; he’d completely forgotten that he clued Rollins into this dilemma. The threats. His small investigation.

“Yeah, okay, so then what is this?” He opened the envelope and slid out an Incident Report, dated August 2nd, 2014. Felipe Heredio, picked up on the corner of Britton Street, possession with intent to distribute.

“I didn’t want to raise any flags by searching Donlan, so I just dug a little deeper into our guy Felipe’s background. You know we picked up his brother Rigo back in 2014 too, right? About six months before the arrest you’re looking at. He was involved in a BX-9 gang rape. A high school student.”

“Yeah,” Sonny said, his voice gruff as he scanned the report. “A real family of winners.”

“And Felipe, I mean we know he’s involved with the gang too, but he seems to have been a lot more… slippery. In the past, at least.”

“Right. He’s barely done any time. Like this,” Sonny said, tapping the document. “These charges were dropped? Insufficient evidence for possession with intent? That doesn’t make any sense. He either had it or he didn’t. At least get him for possession.”

“Exactly,” Rollins replied, and leaned in close. “Look at the arresting officer.”

Sonny’s heart dropped. “You gotta be kidding me,” he muttered, searching for that familiar scrawling signature.

_ Officer Kevin Donlan_.

“How did I miss this?”

She hitched a shoulder. “You weren’t looking for it at the time.”

“Fair. So what do you think? They have a connection? Maybe Donlan’s involved in getting these charges dropped? Maybe Felipe winds up owing him a favor?”

“I mean, I think that it’s still too circumstantial. But…” She bit her lower lip, then glanced over her shoulder once more before leaning in. “It’s an interesting detail, right?”

“Definitely. But what do I do with it?” He slid the report back into its envelope.

“I have an idea. Hear me out.”

“That's never a good opening line.”

She wrinkled her nose. “So a few months ago, I went on a couple of dates with a guy from Homicide. I met him at one of those active shooter workshops back in April. He was a lousy tipper. That should have been my first clue it wasn’t going anywhere—”

“And?”

“I’m getting there, okay? So, most of our dates were at that cop bar out in Hell’s Kitchen, you know, Bar None? Looking back, I guess maybe that should have been a red flag too—anyway, the point is that these guys, Donlan, Campesi, Doom, they were all there. Every time we went. Seemed like they had a regular table.”

“Really?”

Rollins nodded. “I got the sense from seeing them holding court there that… something like what they went through, that it can bond people together, you know? Not always a good thing.”

“So you’re saying they got off scot-free from a bad shoot and still make time for a weekly pity party?”

She chuckled. “Yeah. Something like that. Lotta griping, lotta drinking.”

“So then what’s your angle?” Sonny asked.

“We should go there. Bar None. Saturday night,” Rollins replied, sitting up straighter in her chair as she detailed the plan. “Just a quick check-in, you know, a couple of drinks, see if we don’t overhear anything a little less circumstantial? It’d be nice to get out of the apartment on a Saturday night, anyway.”

He scoffed. “You can’t be serious.” Even if it wasn’t a ludicrous idea at its foundation, Sonny never really took much joy from drinking with midtown cops. It reminded him too much of his days in Homicide; how sometimes tying one on before heading home was the only way to guarantee sleep.

Rollins reached out to grab the envelope from the table and began to weigh it in her hands. “See, now you’ve got me curious. What was _ your _ plan? Once you had convinced yourself it was Donlan sending the threats—and let’s be serious, that’s the direction you were heading—what were you going to do with that information?”

Sonny opened his mouth to respond, something dripping with well-earned indignation no doubt, but he found that there was nothing to say. 

He didn’t have a plan. He never had one to begin with. The compulsion to pick at the threads of One-P-P’s investigation was born out of fear, not logic, and he had always assumed the plan would come together in light of whatever evidence he uncovered.

Once again, Sonny found himself face-to-face with his father’s favorite cautionary tale about eager dogs chasing cars, how they wouldn’t know what to do when they caught one. It was Pavlovian, then, the familiar swell of childish defiance bitter at the back of his throat.

“Okay,” he conceded, raising his palms. “Fine. Say we just check in on Saturday. _ Quickly _. What are you suggesting? That we hang out with these guys? Grill ‘em?”

“Doom would be pretty easy to talk to, at least,” she said, flicking a playful brow, challenging him to ask why that was true.

But Sonny could intuit the answer easily, had witnessed it himself: Detective Dumas’ boundless_ admiration _ for her. “Look, even if Donlan was sending the threats, maybe even hired Heredio to do some of the dirty work, he’s not gonna be _talking_ about it. Not out loud anyway, and definitely not with us.”

She shrugged. “If he’s drunk enough he might. If he thinks we’re on his side, maybe? That we think he got hung out to dry in the Reynolds case? If we can get something incriminating, however small, maybe One-P-P would reopen the case. If nothing else, I kinda get the sense that you want that to happen.”

Sonny leaned back in his chair and stared at the pockmarked ceiling. She was right; the case never should have been shut. He let out a deep sigh. “I think someone’s been sending threats to his mother now. Not physical stuff, you know, but something’s off there.”

“Seriously?”

“She’s more stubborn than he is, so I can’t get a good read on the situation. She refuses to talk about it. But I’ve got a hunch.”

“Seems like you’ve got a lot of those. Does Barba know about those threats?” Rollins asked.

The microwave gave a shrill beep to remind Sonny of his forgotten coffee. “I think he’s pretending not to,” Sonny said, pushing himself out of the chair to retrieve the mug, now just slightly more palatable than cold. “He spent a long time pretending that it wasn’t happening to him, so it’s not a big leap to think he’s ignoring this too.”

“And she’s more stubborn than he is? Sheesh. Good luck with all that.” Rollins stood up from the table. “So, Saturday? Wanna meet at 6:30? 7? I’ll have to get my sitter on board.”

He felt a pang of guilt as he thought of framing the plans to Rafael. A lie by omission was a lie all the same, but any time he tried to press the issue of the unsolved threats in earnest, Rafael dismissed him out of hand. What was he supposed to do? 

“I can’t stay out late,” Sonny said in an attempt at setting a boundary for the evening. Let the record show he didn’t agree to some foolhardy plan with reckless abandon. He reset the microwave for 30 more seconds.

“Don’t worry Cinderella, I’ll have you home before midnight,” Rollins said, idling in the doorway, entirely too proud of herself for the joke. “Besides, the sitter charges too much on the weekends for an unpaid stake-out.”

“It’s not a stake-out,” he said, but turned to find that she had already left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me reliably on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ohlittleowl), and sometimes on [tumblr](https://oh-little-owl.tumblr.com/).


End file.
